Psychology: to pop, or not to pop?
I love the part in "The Incredibles" when the son brings up the point that, "If everyone's special, no one's special." I think kids are more savvy than we give them credit for when it comes to the "feel-good" movement. So many well-intentioned but misguided people encourage children feel good about themselves without allowing them opportunities to prove (to themselves and the viewer) they deserve it. For example, I was a pretty optimistic child, but I remember being very skeptical when adults would say a little doodle I drew was good! I had a clear mental picture of what I was trying to draw, and I could so clearly see how lacking my doodles were in comparison, that when an adult I trusted would say that the drawing was "great" I would question the validity of his/her opinion.Martin Seligman, one of my favorite psychologists, discusses this phenomenon in his book, "The Optimistic Child." Seligman argues that there's been an emphasis on "...how the child feels at the expense of what the child does" (p 27). He thinks there should be a focus on persistence, mastery, and meeting challenge, so that when a child is successful he/she feels that they deserve it. Thus, a good part of Seligman's research focuses on helping people have a more realistic view of their worlds. For example, when he and colleagues at UPenn completed "depression innoculation" programs at high risk schools, they taught children to be "detectives" in their own lives. He'd have them keep journals where they'd write comments about themselves; later, he'd teach them to look at the negative statements (such as, "I'm a terrible soccer player and I'll never get better") as if they were detectives trying to find "proof" of that statement's validity (this is also called "challenging negative cognitions"). He'd teach them to reinterpret their catastrophic statements in a more optimistic light ("I played badly today and need to work more on defense"); importantly, this optimistic light isn't debating the fundamental nature of the problem, but rather it encourages a child to see problems as less pervasive and permanent. Thus, becoming optimistic isn't related to feeling "happy" or successful all the time; it's simply a choice of attitude, so that when one comes across inevitable failures, they are seen as something one can overcome rather than catastrophes.
Let's step back for a second. In order to really delve into this subject, I have to give a brief background on the whole "positive psychology" movement and then define what I mean by "optimistic interpretations." Traditionally, psychology has been founded on a "pathology" model, where treating illness or abnormality are a main focus; less than a decade ago, a brilliant psychologist named Martin Seligman realized that the field of psychology could involve rigorous study of "positive" factors such as resilience, optimism, and even happiness (which they decided to call "subjective well-being" so it sounds a bit more scientific, hehe). Here's a link that gives a very brief description of how his realization came about: http://www.apa.org/apags/profdev/pospsyc.html
Seligman and his colleagues found that people tend to explain events in their lives according to three general dimensions: personalization (internal vs. external), pervasiveness (specific vs. universal), and permanence (temporary vs. permanent). People with an optimistic "explanatory style" (or way of explaining their world and attributing life events) see problems as external, specific and temporary; conversely, people with a pessimistic explanatory style attribute problems to their own internal factors and interpret them as universal and permanent (to read a cool interview with Seligman, see http://www.eqtoday.com/optimism/seligman.html).
Let's revisit the soccer example: after losing a soccer game, I could choose to interpret the game's result as internal (I'm a terrible player) or external (the other team's players were very good); specific (I didn't defend number 10 very well) versus universal (I can't defend anyone); and temporary (I played badly today) versus permanent (I will always play poorly). After framing this phenomena in these terms, when I reflect on my upbringing I'm absolutely floored with how consistently my parents encouraged me to interpret events in an optimistic way. Without ever seeming preachy, my parents really helped provide optimistic attributions for a loss (the other team was good, I am not good at defending just one of their players, and I played badly just today) whenever I would say that I felt I had done badly or wasn't a good player. Thanks, mom and dad!
Brief sidebar on pop psychology: after studying at Vassar, I found myself a bit jaded with a lot of mainstream media, such as "pop psychology" or "self-help" books, popular TV shows and news outlets, etc. Of course, part of my education was learning to see the complexities of any blanket statement, so part of me didn't want to reject those genres outright, but I think I did feel a bit snobby when I'd see the "Self-help" section in the bookstore.However, a few things have changed my mind lately. Firstly, Suraj recently helped me question whether there really was a quality difference between someone acting according to certain principles because they read them in a book or acting on them because that is what they had learned from their parents, teachers, etc. I had generally seen knowledge from self-help books as less "authentic," yet when I asked myself whether it was really more authentic to have learned it from various life factors, I thought not!
This book ("The Optimistic Child") is a perfect example: it happens to lay out how I remember being raised by my parents, yet they had that knowledge just from their life experiences rather than a book. Who am I to say that it would have been less authentic if they had treated me they way they did because of a self-help book? Throughout our daily lives we're all just acting upon what we think is the right or appropriate thing to do given the proof we've seen in our own experiences and those of others, whether they be books, movies, conversations with family and friends, or experiences at school or work. Also, I stopped knocking the "self-help" genre because I realized, as I said earlier, it's just like any other category - there are some great examples, some not so great, so my job is to separate the good from the bad.
Anyway, this stuff is actually a lot more interesting when you take specific examples and go in depth on them. I also should add that I have issues with many of these concepts when applying them to specific situations. For example, in sports, while it's seen as more "optimistic" to say that a loss is due to external rather than internal factors, you may sacrifice an opportunity to improve because it may actually be internal factors within your team that contribute to the loss. Additionally, we must ask what happens when the proof in one's life points to one being very sub-par on most all dimensions. Some of the factors regarding learned optimisim don't help too much with permanent conditions such as chronic illness; also, there are studies showing that depressed people tend to have a more realistic view of their strengths and weaknesses so the question would arise of whether making children into detectives of their own lives might actually make some more depressed. Also, if someone takes this to the logical extreme and persistently attributes their failures to external factors, they may sacrifice important chances for improvement (ie: i failed this math test because the teacher "sucks" rather than because I didn't study).
Another point I'd add is that the two explanatory stules (optimism and pessimism) are not mutually exclusive - a soccer game is so long that a certain goal can be seen as arising from one team's accomplishment while another could be due to the other team's mistake. Along those same lines, I must offer some explanation of another theory that has a special place in my heart: positive pessimism. Now, you might think that's an oxy-moron, but by the way this author defines it, the concept makes perfect sense! You can see it in her words at:
http://www.defensivepessimism.com Basically, the idea is that you prepare for the worst and hope for the best. It's known as "defensive pessimism" as well as "positive pessimism;" you'd say it was "positive" not becaues it was upbeat or particularly happy, but because the effect is positive on your life. Defensive pessimism is actually a way to prevent anxiety, because if you consider all the worse case scenarios and then make plans for them, you can feel a sense of control in your environment. Food for thought!
Just thinking and reading about these makes me realize what a bad judge I would be, because I really do focus on what I agree with in each of these rather than saying one is "right" and one is "wrong." Also, I just believe each human is so complex - at times I am a true-blue optimist, yet at others I definitely utilize defensive pessimism (this is certainly true with respect to some recent existential angst regarding what i should "do" with my life). Thus, I don't want to come across as totally simplifying things here, and I am afraid I might have done so a bit; at the end of the day, though, I figure it can't hurt to throw some ideas out there and see what people think - please post responses if you'd like to talk more about this! | posted by Cheryl, 10/03/2005 12:05:00 PM
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