How To Explain Your Way to Happiness

When a setback strikes you, how you explain it can determine whether you remain happy.

Martin Seligman, who laid the foundations of the field of positive psychology with his studies on learned helplessness, has found that people bouncing back from adversity all had a constructive way of making meaning out of their adversities- they interpret their setbacks as temporary and not powerful enough to deter them. He called this way of explaining away the impact of past events an “optimistic explanatory style” as against a “pessimistic explanatory style.”

Research shows that an optimistic explanatory style predicts performance in school and sports. An optimistic attitude is beneficial for us- it is associated with good physical and mental health and well-being; optimistic people are good to be around and, unsurprisingly, have strong social networks.

Seligman says that optimism is at the core of a person’s healthy living. In his experiments on ‘learned helplessness’ (see my previous article on the subject) with human subjects, those who learned ‘helplessness’ were pessimistic.

On the other hand, in these experiments, one in three human subjects did not become helpless. They kept on trying repeatedly, believing that not being able to control was an anomaly. They were optimists.

Optimists are less vulnerable to diseases, and they live longer, possibly because they take action, have healthier lifestyles and social support, and have better immune system functioning.

Pessimism is not all bad. Depressed people make more reliable predictions than optimists, a case of “depressive realism”. Optimists are delusional. But we all need a little bit of delusion to survive and prosper in this world.

Research says that if you evaluate yourself as being slightly better than how you are currently, you are more likely to persist, perform better, and feel less stressed. So, a bit of delusion is healthy.

In fact, optimism alone can help one become the top in certain professions. For example, research shows that business firms are better off recruiting salespeople based on their optimism levels alone. Salespeople who are optimistic outsell their less optimistic counterparts by a huge margin.

Seligman speaks about ‘explanatory styles’ as determining whether one is pessimistic or optimistic. Whenever tragedy strikes, pessimistic people consider these instances as permanent, universal, and personal and explain accordingly. For example,

I will never be able to do this (permanence).

Everyone is working against me (universal).

It’s all my fault (personal).

Optimists have a positive explanatory style. They consider adverse events as temporary, not caused by them, and have other causes, and these causes are not universal. For example:

I may have failed, but I will do better next time.

It is just that the economic situation is terrible. But things will change for the better.

I was unlucky this time.

Seligman’s research has found that changing the explanatory style from pessimistic to optimistic can improve outcomes for both individuals and groups. So, in case you feel low, change the way to explain things.