The theory of defensive pessimism suggests that imagining—and planning for—worst-case scenarios can be more effective than trying to think positively.Or at least, that’s how I would start out thinking if I were prone to defensive pessimism, a phenomenon in which people imagine worst-case scenarios in order to manage their anxiety. But what defensive pessimists do next is key: They come up with strategies to avoid having all of those bad things happen, thus ending up better-prepared and less anxious in the long-run. In my case, that might mean topping this article with a clever title or even pre-writing some 140-character barbs to rout the haters.
.. Optimism does have its health benefits, but according to Julie Norem, a psychology professor at Wellesley College, trying to force positivity is a bad strategy for the truly anxious.
.. When people are being defensively pessimistic, they set low expectations, but then they take the next step which is to think through in concrete and vivid ways what exactly might go wrong. What we’ve seen in the research is if they do this in a specific, vivid way, it helps them plan to avoid the disaster. They end up performing better than if they didn’t use the strategy. It helps them direct their anxiety toward productive activity.
.. The more internal drawbacks are if instead of thinking of negative possibilities in very specific terms, you start spiraling out of control. That’s what clinicians consider catastrophizing to be. Instead of thinking of specific things that can go wrong that you can prevent, you say, “This talk is going to be a disaster. My whole life is a mess. I’m going to lose my job and my partner’s going to leave me.” The specificity is key to having positive effects as opposed to negative effects.