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?

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…