The Optimistic Profile: Expecting Things to Work Out, Without Naivety

The stable expectation that you’ll manage

The optimism in this profile isn’t about denying problems. It’s the stable expectation that, in general, you’ll find a way to solve them.

The optimistic profile describes what psychology calls dispositional optimism: a fairly stable tendency to expect good outcomes, not a passing mood.

What dispositional optimism is

Psychologists Michael Scheier and Charles Carver (1985) defined it as a generalized expectancy of favorable outcomes. To measure it, they created the Life Orientation Test, revised in 1994 as the LOT-R (Scheier, Carver and Bridges, 1994), a short scale with statements such as “in uncertain times, I usually expect the best.” The revision was partly meant to show that optimism isn’t simply the friendly face of low neuroticism, but a construct with weight of its own.

Their model explains the effect through motivation: people who expect to reach a goal keep trying when obstacles appear, while people who expect to fail tend to give up sooner.

What the research says

The accumulated data back that logic, with effects that are modest but consistent:

• Coping. A meta-analysis of 50 studies and 11,629 people (Nes and Segerstrom, 2006) found that optimism is associated with approach strategies, the ones aimed at solving or managing the problem (r = 0.17), and inversely with avoidance strategies (r = -0.21). It also found that optimistic people adjust their strategy to what each situation calls for.
• Physical health. Another meta-analysis, covering 83 studies (Rasmussen, Scheier and Greenhouse, 2009), found an average relationship of 0.17 between optimism and various health indicators, somewhat larger when health was self-reported than when it was measured objectively.

A correlation of 0.17 doesn’t turn optimism into a shield, but it does point to a real advantage that shows up again and again across many contexts.

Dispositional optimism versus explanatory style

Two different lines of research often get mixed up. Martin Seligman, in Learned Optimism (1990), isn’t talking about expectations for the future but about explanatory style: how each person explains why something bad happened to them. Peterson and Seligman (1984) described it along three dimensions. A pessimistic style attributes failures to causes that are internal (“it’s my fault”), stable (“it always happens”) and global (“it happens to me in everything”); an optimistic style attributes them to causes that are external, temporary and specific.

The two ideas look alike and often go together, but they’re measured with different instruments and they aren’t the same thing. The quiz on this site reflects that mix: most of its statements in the optimistic block are expectations (“I expect things to go well for me”), while one, about thinking a failure “was a one-off,” is closer to Seligman’s explanatory style.

How it shows up day to day

• When a problem comes up, you trust you’ll find a way to solve it, rather than freezing in the face of uncertainty.
• You read failures as one-offs, not as a pattern bound to repeat indefinitely.
• You rarely picture worst-case scenarios before an important event.
• You trust that, in the long run, things tend to turn out reasonably well, even when the present is hard.

An example: an optimistic person is turned down for a job after the final interview. It stings, but that same week they ask the company for feedback on their application and use it to prepare for the next one. They don’t deny the setback; they treat it as an episode they can get something out of.

Where it can go wrong: unrealistic optimism

Psychologist Neil Weinstein (1980) asked 258 college students to compare their chances of experiencing 42 life events with those of their classmates. On average, they saw themselves as more likely than others to experience the good ones and less likely to experience the bad ones. Weinstein called this unrealistic optimism: a comparative bias that shows up even in people who wouldn’t describe themselves as optimists.

That’s the risk for this profile. A positive general expectation helps you persevere, but applied to specific risks (an investment, a deadline, a medical test) it can lead you to overlook relevant information. Hence the value of separating two levels: the underlying confidence that things will work out, and the assessment of one particular decision, where the view of a more realistic or cautious profile brings in data that optimism tends to leave out.

This result describes a self-reported tendency, not a diagnosis. Want to see exactly where you sit between optimism, realism and strategic caution? Take the quiz on your expectation style.

Sources

• Scheier, M. F., and Carver, C. S. (1985). Optimism, coping, and health: Assessment and implications of generalized outcome expectancies. Health Psychology, 4(3), 219-247.
• Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., and Bridges, M. W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): A reevaluation of the Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1063-1078. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.1063
• Nes, L. S., and Segerstrom, S. C. (2006). Dispositional optimism and coping: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(3), 235-251. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_3
• Rasmussen, H. N., Scheier, M. F., and Greenhouse, J. B. (2009). Optimism and physical health: A meta-analytic review. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 37(3), 239-256. doi:10.1007/s12160-009-9111-x
• Peterson, C., and Seligman, M. E. P. (1984). Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence. Psychological Review, 91(3), 347-374. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.91.3.347
• Seligman, M. E. P. (1990). Learned Optimism. Knopf.
• Weinstein, N. D. (1980). Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), 806-820. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.39.5.806