The makings of a pessimist: nature, nurture, and Lance

Pessimist

The Makings of a Pessimist

"Lance" is a pessimist. It seems he always expects the worst out of life. If he is invited to go out with friends, he asks a number of questions, all in a negative tone: Why do you want to do that? How long do you think we'll be? What if we get stuck in traffic? Can't find it? Don't enjoy it? Get hurt? It sometimes makes it difficult to be Lance's friend.

Winston Churchill once said, "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" ("Pessimist"). Two people can look at the same situation or have the same experience, yet reflect on it in completely opposite ways. It seems that Lance was just born a pessimist, while others are just born optimists. As with Lance, one set of difficulties seems to beget another, while optimists seem to enjoy one "lucky" break after another. It begs the question: are pessimists unhappy because bad things happen to them, or do bad things happen because they are pessimists?

Pessimists are quick to withdraw effort, become passive and give up on their goals. On the other hand, people with optimistic life orientations have more positive expectations for their future compared to their pessimistic counterparts. Optimists tend to see desired outcomes as more attainable and persist longer in their goal-directed efforts (Lemola, Raikkonen, Matthews, Scheier, Heinonen, Pesonen, Komsi, and Lahti 72). A person's outlook is a relatively stable personality dimension (Scheir & Carver, 1985, cited in Lemola et al.). In other words, optimists do not become pessimists or vice versa, at least barring some significant event or trauma in life that alters one's view.

Human personality theory is complex and scientists do not understand completely where traits originate. There is likely a genetic component in pessimism; Lance's parents are both pessimists and it is possible he inherited a predisposition for gloom. It is hard to separate nature vs. nurture, however. Growing up in a negative household, Lance's negativity was reinforced. He did not have any optimists as role models and therefore never learned to be any other way.

Life can be hard for pessimists. At its extreme, it has been demonstrated that it can kill. In the 1970s, for example, a man named Sam Shoeman was diagnosed with end-stage liver cancer and given just months to live. Shoeman died just as expected, but the autopsy revealed his doctors had made a huge mistake. The tumor inside Mr. Shoeman was tiny and had not spread. The astounded doctors concluded that Shoeman had not died of cancer but from believing he was dying of cancer (Pilcher). Although this is an extreme example, it shows that an individual's outlook can have a profound effect on health and, ultimately, life.