Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Learned optimism

Tutorial 06: Learned optimism
This is the sixth tutorial for the motivation and emotion unit of study.

This tutorial:

1. Explores learned optimism (the opposite of learned helplessness)
2. Wraps up motivation (following tutorials focus mainly on emotion)

This exercise explores learned optimism.

Learned optimism relates to personal control beliefs in Chapter 10 of Reeve (2018) and the mindsets, control, and the self lecture. Whilst the textbook and lecture focus on learned helplessness, here attention is turned to the opposite: learned optimism.

Discuss:

• What characterises learned helplessness?
• What characterises learned optimism?

A computer metaphor:

• Body and brain = "hardware". Can't easily be changed.
• Thinking = "software". Reprogrammable.
• At least, this is the view of cognitive psychology

The learned helplessness and learned optimism concepts were developed by Martin Seligman. Seligman started with research about learned helplessness in animals and then later applied this to learning optimism in humans and positive psychology more generally. Three key books in this respect are:

• Helplessness: On depression, development, and death (Seligman, 1975)
• Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life (Seligman, 1990)
• The hope circuit: A psychologist's journey from helplessness to optimism (Seligman, 2018)

Activity: Learned Optimism Test Are you more pessimistic or optimistic? Let's find out. Complete the Learned Optimism Test (48 items; 10 - 15 mins; modified from Seligman, 1991) Scoring: "Right" answers are scored as optimistic; "wrong" answers are scored as pessimistic Keep your answers up on the screen; note the total Discussion: Explain the theoretical structure (see below) View and discuss the results.

Attributions are our explanations about causes of events. Our attributions about past events is used to predict causes of future events.

The Learned Optimism Test measures three types of attributions:

• Permanence: How a person views the duration of an event's cause, seeing it as either temporary (transient) or permanent (stable)
• Pervasiveness: How a person views the scope of an event's cause, seeing it as either specific (domain-bound) or universal (widespread across domains)
• Personalisation: How a person views the source of an event's cause, seeing it as either internal (attributable to the self) or external (attributable to others or circumstances)

The Learned Optimism Test measures the three types of attributions for each of two types of events:

• Good: Positive occurrences in a person's life that lead to positive feelings
• Bad: Negative occurrences in a person's life that lead to negative feelings

The three attributions for two types of events combine to create a six-domain theoretical structure (see Table 1).

Table 1.
Attributional Dimensions (3) by Event Valence (2) Explanation of Pessimism-Optimism

Table 2.
Explanatory Styles Based on Attributional Dimensions of Pessimism and Optimism

Time: Temporary vs. Permanent - a pessimistic view is that bad events are permanent and good events are temporary (opposite for optimism)

• PmB (Permanent Bad)
• PmG (Permanent Good)

Space: Specific vs. Universal (i.e., across situations/domains) - a pessimistic view is that bad events are pervasive across situations/domains and good events are specific to a situation/domain (opposite for optimism)

• PvB (Pervasive Bad)
• PvG (Pervasive Good)

Control/causality: Internal vs. External - a pessimistic view is that bad events are internally caused and good events are externally causes (opposite for optimism)

• PsB (Personalisation Bad)
• PsG (Personalisation Good)

Would you like to become more optimistic?

If so, Seligman suggests a cognitive ABCDE solution:

Table 3.
How to Change Pessimistic Thinking Styles

There are well established positive relationships between optimism and important life outcomes such as physical health (e.g., longevity) and psychological well-being.

But is optimism always good? For example:

• Narcissism - Believing that one is all-powerful and influential can contribute to inflated self-importance (i.e., narcissism)
• Risk-taking - Believing that one can control good outcomes (when you actually can't) can be problematic (e.g., gambling)

Is pessimism always bad? For example:

• If anticipating negative future events is associated with positive, prepatory and preventive action (i.e., taking responsibility and acting with sufficient skill), then a pessimistic outlook could be beneficial
• But if the self is unnecessarily blamed, it can lead to helplessness, low self-esteem etc.

Despite these potential problems, the advantages of optimism are overwhelming. So much so that the psychologically healthiest people tend to have "positive illusions", that is, they have somewhat unrealistically positive views. "Pessimists" and "realists", on the other hand, are more prone to depression.

• Common mistakes include:
  • Using genAI without appropriate acknowledgement
  • Overly relying on genAI, with insufficient independent reading, critical thinking, and writing
• Using generative AI guidelines:
  • Link to chat in edit summary
  • Rewrite to improve
  • Fact check and include primary, peer-reviewed sources you have consulted

• Tutorial 06 (2025)

Additional tutorial material

• Self-constructs

Book chapters

• Learned helplessness (Category)
• Learned optimism (2011)

Wikipedia

• Attribution
• Cognitive behavioral therapy
• Learned helplessness
• Learned optimism
• Positive illusions
• Rational emotive behavior therapy

Lecture

• Mindsets, control, and the self

Tutorials

• Functionalist theory and self-tracking (Previous tutorial)
• Core emotions (Next tutorial)

Admin

• Instructor notes

• Avoiding learned helplessness and changing your explanatory style (Mackay & Mackay, 2010, artofmanliness.com, Building your resiliency: Part II)
• Learned optimism: Is Martin Seligman’s glass half full? (positivepsychology.com)