How many times have you prepared yourself to face a situation thinking about the worst case scenario? For example, you go to a job interview and on the way you suppose that surely they will not hire you because there are better candidates than you and that you will have to continue looking for a job. However, in the end, you are the first person they call and the one who gets the job. If you have been through a similar situation, you have already applied defensive pessimism.
This psychological mechanism is the product of predisposition, which makes your approach negative to try to minimize the pain in case something goes wrong. Now, when negative pessimism is handled correctly, it can be a very useful coping strategy to control anxiety and disappointment. In this Psychology-Online article you will discover what is defensive pessimism in psychology and some examples for you to delve deeper into this fascinating topic.
What is defensive pessimism syndrome? In the area of psychology, defensive pessimism is a
In addition, defensive pessimism is also known as a strategy to regulate self-concept and is closely related to low self-esteem. People who do not have a balanced self-esteem usually face the facts from a very negative outlookdefeatist and they feel unable to take on challenges and face adversity.
In fact, people with low self-esteem start an internal dialogue to give up before starting their battles. Sometimes they even stop trying to reach that goal, so they abandon the task in a short time. On the contrary, individuals with good self-esteem take advantage of failures as a source of learning through experience.
Each person deals with life situations differently. Some of them have an optimistic attitude loaded with winning thoughts. Instead, others use defensive pessimism as a belief that they can only prepare for the worst case scenario.
The syndrome of defensive pessimism as a misapplied strategy can create a state of permanent anxiety and frustration and a constant increase in hopelessness. In turn, when this emotional state enters the scene, people tend to make less effort to achieve their goal, since little by little they are convinced that their efforts will not help.
Now, there are cases in which the same individual presents both approaches, defensive optimism and pessimism, but applies them according to her interests and needs. For this reason, it is common to see that some people are very optimistic about academic studies, for example, but imagine the worst results in sports activities.
How defensive pessimism influences us
Nevertheless, it is best try to balance the attitudinal postures described above, since an excess of self-confidence can cause you to fall into the error of not prepare you for future situations, while a misguided defensive pessimism will make you hesitate to take a chance
In other words, the effectiveness of defensive pessimism or positive posturing will vary from person to person, so neither method is arguably better than the other. If you want to know more about positive and negative attitudes, you may also be interested in this article on the characteristics of optimistic and positive people.
the famous phrase "break a leg" is one of the examples of defensive pessimism that actors and actresses repeat to wish each other good luck. Thus, imagine the worst outcome before staging the play so that you can enjoy more of its success when it's over. That is just one of many variants of this method that exist. Here are some other examples of defensive pessimism:
- study for a test: A student is afraid of failing a university entrance exam. Later, he reflects on what are the areas in which he has the most weaknesses and prepares himself for those particular contents.
- Ask for a date: one person wants to ask another out, but has too much fear of being rejected. A dialogue is proposed with the possible negative responses that you will get and explores the emotions that they generate. At the time of the statement, you feel less nervous and less anxious because you have prepared in advance.
The ideal is to use defensive pessimism to our advantage without letting it overwhelm us. In this way, taking into account the worst results, we can prepare to avoid them at all costs.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
