Defensive pessimism

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Defensive pessimism is a psychological construct of differential personality psychology that was mainly postulated by Julie Norem , Nancy Cantor and co-workers.

description

This is a strategy for anxiety reduction in advance of performance situations. It includes the subjective lowering of one's own expectations and intensive reflection on the task at hand and the potential difficulties associated with it. This happens - this differs from the “regular” pessimist - although similar situations have already been successfully dealt with in the past.

Defensive pessimists therefore have a greater performance potential than they admit. Furthermore, they can apparently still book the results achieved as successes, because they continue the strategy of defensive pessimism in other situations because they do well with it. Norem emphasizes that this is one of several possible strategies and useful for people who cannot overcome their fears by looking at past, positive events. Thus, they are better able to convert their fear into preparation for the upcoming performance situation. In this way, they succeed in motivating themselves for the upcoming exam and, above all, in reducing their fear so much that the performance of the task is not impaired.

The strategy is applied under certain framework conditions and situations: “[…] pessimism seemed to function as a focused plan for addressing a specific constellation of problems and goals”. (“Pessimism seems to work like a plan for specific problem constellations and goals.”) However, if the strategy of defensive pessimism has been repeatedly used successfully to reduce anxiety in performance situations, the selective application tends to transition into a relatively stable personality disposition . By the nature of things, this approach is less apparent in situations with increased familiarity with the task or generally lower fear intensity.

Experiments

  • Julie Norem and co-workers carried out experiments that primarily examined the effectiveness of the two essential components of defensive pessimism: On the one hand, the aim was to clarify whether the low expectations actually take pressure off those concerned, and on the other hand, the focus was on the question of to what extent this Anticipated mental testing of the situations provides a good set of tools for precise action plans.
  • In a study by Cantor, Norem, Niedenthal , Langston , Brower in 1987, students who had previously been identified as defensive pessimists or as strategic optimists were invited to take a kind of intelligence test . Individuals who use optimism as a strategy are confident in their assessment of performance and avoid intensive anticipatory thinking about the situation. Measurements before the start of the experiment showed that the defensive pessimists felt more fearful and less control over the situation. Furthermore, despite the situation of comparable objective success stories, they stated lower expectations regarding their performance on the test. Half of the participants with defensive pessimism were suggested that the inspection of their study files suggested a good performance, which could also change their assessments in the run-up towards greater confidence. The evaluation of the subsequent test showed, however, that this subgroup performed worse than those who were left unaffected in their negative prognoses . Norem concludes from this that the fear that interferes with such tasks was by no means reduced in the course of the suggestion .
  • In a further study, the strategy of mentally playing through the situation was circumvented in such a way that a subgroup of defensive pessimists was prevented from thinking through light but attention-consuming office work in front of the performance situation, while the other subgroup was not only allowed to pursue their usual strategy, it reinforced it by asking them to imagine how they would fare on the test and to list what possible outcomes might result. There was also a group of strategic optimists. Psychological and physiological measurements before the task was performed showed higher levels of anxiety and less experience of control among the defensive pessimists in general. Their performance was significantly better if they had not been stopped from their ritual of mentally playing through possible situations. The level of excitement of the defensive pessimists distracted from brooding by their activity had indeed decreased during office work, but rose sharply in the situation, which had an unfavorable effect on the performance of the tasks. In the other subgroup, the arousal curve was the other way round: while it was quite high in the run-up to thinking, it fell in the performance situation. When asked in retrospect about their performance, control, joy and satisfaction while performing the tasks, the defensive pessimists without distraction stated a significantly more sense of control and a higher assessment of their performance, although they lagged behind the relevant values ​​in the case of the optimists - with the condition "distraction" - stayed behind.

literature

  • Norem, JK (2001). Defensive Pessimism, Optimism and Pessimism. In: Chang, EC Optimism & pessimism: implications for theory, research and practice. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
  • Norem-1993 : Norem, JK & Illingworth, KS (1993). Strategy-dependent effects of reflecting on self and tasks: Some implications of optimism and defensive pessimism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norem, JK & Cantor, N. (1986). Defensive pessimism: Harnessing anxiety and motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1208-1217.
  2. ↑ a b c Norem, JK (2002). The positive power of negative thinking. Bern u. a .: joke. ISBN 3502145016
  3. ↑ cf. Norem, 2002, p. 21.
  4. ↑ a b Cantor, N., Norem, JK, Niedenthal, PM, Langston, CA & Brower, AM (1987). Life tasks, self-concept ideals, and cognitive strategies in a life transition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1178-1191, p. 1188.
  5. ↑ cf. Norem-1993, pp. 822-835
  6. ↑ cf. Norem-1993, p. 826
  7. ↑ Norem 1993, pp. 827-828.