Paranoia is an instinct or thought process which is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself (i.e. the American colloquial phrase, "Everyone is out to get me"). Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame.
Making false accusations and the general distrust of other people also frequently accompany paranoia. For example, a paranoid person might believe an incident was intentional when most people would view it as an accident or coincidence. Paranoia is a central symptom of psychosis.
Signs and symptoms
A common symptom of paranoia is the attribution bias. These individuals typically have a biased perception of reality, often exhibiting more hostile beliefs. A paranoid person may view someone else's accidental behavior as though it is with intent or threatening.
An investigation of a non-clinical paranoid population found that
feeling powerless and depressed, isolating oneself, and relinquishing
activities are characteristics that could be associated with those
exhibiting more frequent paranoia.
Some scientists have created different subtypes for the various symptoms
of paranoia including erotic, persecutory, litigious, and exalted.
Due to the suspicious and troublesome personality traits of
paranoia, it is unlikely that someone with paranoia will thrive in
interpersonal relationships. Most commonly paranoid individuals tend to
be of a single status.
According to some research there is a hierarchy for paranoia. The
least common types of paranoia at the very top of the hierarchy would
be those involving more serious threats. Social anxiety is at the bottom of this hierarchy as the most frequently exhibited level of paranoia.
Causes
Social and environmental
Social
circumstances appear to be highly influential on paranoid beliefs.
Based on data collected by means of a mental health survey distributed
to residents of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (in Mexico) and El Paso, Texas
(in the United States), paranoid beliefs seem to be associated with
feelings of powerlessness and victimization, enhanced by social
situations. Potential causes of these effects included a sense of
believing in external control, and mistrust which can be strengthened by
lower socioeconomic status. Those living in a lower socioeconomic
status may feel less in control of their own lives. In addition, this
study explains that females have the tendency to believe in external
control at a higher rate than males, potentially making females more
susceptible to mistrust and the effects of socioeconomic status on
paranoia.
Emanuel Messinger reports that surveys have revealed that those
exhibiting paranoia can evolve from parental relationships and
untrustworthy environments. These environments could include being very
disciplinary, stringent, and unstable. It was even noted that,
"indulging and pampering (thereby impressing the child that they are
something special and warrants special privileges)," can be contributing
backgrounds.
Experiences likely to enhance or manifest the symptoms of paranoia
include increased rates of disappointment, stress, and a hopeless state
of mind.
Discrimination has also been reported as a potential predictor of
paranoid delusions. Such reports that paranoia seemed to appear more in
older patients who had experienced higher levels of discrimination
throughout their lives. In addition to this it has been noted that
immigrants are quite susceptible to forms of psychosis. This could be
due to the aforementioned effects of discriminatory events and
humiliation.
Psychological
Many more mood-based symptoms, grandiosity and guilt, may underlie functional paranoia.
Colby (1981) defined paranoid cognition in terms of persecutory
delusions and false beliefs whose propositional content clusters around
ideas of being harassed, threatened, harmed, subjugated, persecuted,
accused, mistreated, wronged, tormented, disparaged, vilified, and so
on, by malevolent others, either specific individuals or groups (p. 518).
Three components of paranoid cognition have been identified by Robins & Post: a)
suspicions without enough basis that others are exploiting, harming, or
deceiving them; b) preoccupation with unjustified doubts about the
loyalty, or trustworthiness, of friends or associates; c) reluctance to
confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will
be used maliciously against them (1997, p. 3).
Paranoid cognition has been conceptualized by clinical psychology
almost exclusively in terms of psychodynamic constructs and
dispositional variables. From this point of view, paranoid cognition is a
manifestation of an intra-psychic conflict or disturbance. For
instance, Colby (1981) suggested that the biases of blaming others for
one’s problems serve to alleviate the distress produced by the feeling
of being humiliated, and helps to repudiate the belief that the self is
to blame for such incompetence. This intra-psychic perspective
emphasizes that the cause of paranoid cognitions are inside the head of
the people (social perceiver), and dismiss the fact that paranoid
cognition may be related with the social context in which such
cognitions are embedded. This point is extremely relevant because when
origins of distrust and suspicion (two components of paranoid cognition)
are studied many researchers have accentuated the importance of social
interaction, particularly when social interaction has gone awry. Even
more, a model of trust development pointed out that trust increases or
decreases as a function of the cumulative history of interaction between
two or more persons.
Another relevant difference can be discerned among "pathological
and non-pathological forms of trust and distrust". According to Deutsch,
the main difference is that non-pathological forms are flexible and
responsive to changing circumstances. Pathological forms reflect
exaggerated perceptual biases and judgmental predispositions that can
arise and perpetuate them, are reflexively caused errors similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It has been suggested that a "hierarchy" of paranoia exists,
extending from mild social evaluative concerns, through ideas of social
reference, to persecutory beliefs concerning mild, moderate, and severe
threats.
Physical
A
paranoid reaction may be caused from a decline in brain circulation as a
result of high blood pressure or hardening of the arterial walls.
Drug-induced paranoia, associated with cannabis, amphetamines, methamphetamine and similar stimulants
has much in common with schizophrenic paranoia; the relationship has
been under investigation since 2012. Drug-induced paranoia has a better
prognosis than schizophrenic paranoia once the drug has been removed. For further information, see stimulant psychosis and substance-induced psychosis.
Based on data obtained by the Dutch NEMESIS project in 2005,
there was an association between impaired hearing and the onset of
symptoms of psychosis, which was based on a five-year follow up. Some
older studies have actually declared that a state of paranoia can be
produced in patients that were under a hypnotic state of deafness. This
idea however generated much skepticism during its time.
Diagnosis
In the DSM-IV-TR, paranoia is diagnosed in the form of:
According to clinical psychologist
P. J. McKenna, "As a noun, paranoia denotes a disorder which has been
argued in and out of existence, and whose clinical features, course,
boundaries, and virtually every other aspect of which is controversial.
Employed as an adjective, paranoid has become attached to a diverse set
of presentations, from paranoid schizophrenia, through paranoid
depression, to paranoid personality—not to mention a motley collection
of paranoid 'psychoses', 'reactions', and 'states'—and this is to
restrict discussion to functional disorders.
Even when abbreviated down to the prefix para-, the term crops up
causing trouble as the contentious but stubbornly persistent concept of paraphrenia".
The word paranoia comes from the Greek παράνοια (paranoia), "madness", and that from παρά (para), "beside, by" and νόος (noos), "mind".
The term was used to describe a mental illness in which a delusional
belief is the sole or most prominent feature. In this definition, the
belief does not have to be persecutory to be classified as paranoid, so
any number of delusional beliefs can be classified as paranoia.
For example, a person who has the sole delusional belief that they are
an important religious figure would be classified by Kraepelin as having
'pure paranoia'. The word “paranoia” is associated from the Greek word
“para-noeo”.
Its meaning was "derangement", or "departure from the normal". However,
the word was used strictly and other words were used such as "insanity"
or "crazy", as these words were introduced by Aurelius Cornelius
Celsus. The term “paranoia” first made an appearance during plays of
Greek tragedians, and was also used by sufficient individuals such as
Plato and Hippocrates. Nevertheless, the word “paranoia” was the
equivalent of “delirium” or “high fever”. Eventually, the term made its’
way out of everyday language for two millennia. “Paranoia” was soon
revived as it made an appearance in the writings of the “nosologists”.
It began to take appearance in France, with the writings of Rudolph
August Vogel (1772) and Francois Boissier de Sauvage (1759).
According to Michael Phelan, Padraig Wright, and Julian Stern (2000), paranoia and paraphrenia are debated entities that were detached from dementia praecox
by Kraepelin, who explained paranoia as a continuous systematized
delusion arising much later in life with no presence of either
hallucinations or a deteriorating course, paraphrenia as an identical
syndrome to paranoia but with hallucinations. Even at the present time, a
delusion need not be suspicious or fearful to be classified as
paranoid. A person might be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia
without delusions of persecution, simply because their delusions refer
mainly to themselves.
Relations to violence
It
has generally been agreed upon that individuals with paranoid delusions
will have the tendency to take action based on their beliefs.
More research is needed on the particular types of actions that are
pursued based on paranoid delusions. Some researchers have made attempts
to distinguish the different variations of actions brought on as a
result of delusions. Wessely et al. (1993) did just this by studying
individuals with delusions of which more than half had reportedly taken
action or behaved as a result of these delusions. However, the overall
actions were not of a violent nature in most of the informants. The
authors note that other studies such as one by Taylor (1985), have shown
that violent behaviors were more common in certain types of paranoid
individuals, mainly those considered to be offensive such as prisoners.
Other researchers have found associations between childhood
abusive behaviors and the appearance of violent behaviors in psychotic
individuals. This could be a result of their inability to cope with
aggression as well as other people, especially when constantly attending
to potential threats in their environment.
The attention to threat itself has been proposed as one of the major
contributors of violent actions in paranoid people, although there has
been much deliberation about this as well.
Other studies have shown that there may only be certain types of
delusions that promote any violent behaviors, persecutory delusions seem
to be one of these.
Having resentful emotions towards others and the inability to
understand what other people are feeling seem to have an association
with violence in paranoid individuals. This was based on a study of
paranoid schizophrenics' (one of the common mental disorders that
exhibit paranoid symptoms) theories of mind capabilities in relation to
empathy. The results of this study revealed specifically that although
the violent patients were more successful at the higher level theory of
mind tasks, they were not as able to interpret others' emotions or
claims.
Paranoid social cognition
Social psychological research has proposed a mild form of paranoid cognition, paranoid social cognition, that has its origins in social determinants more than intra-psychic conflict. This perspective states that in milder forms, paranoid cognitions may
be very common among normal individuals. For instance, it is not strange
that people may exhibit in their daily life, self-centered thought such
as they are being talked about, suspiciousness about other’ intentions,
and assumptions of ill-will or hostility (i.e. people may feel as if
everything is going against them). According to Kramer, (1998) these
milder forms of paranoid cognition may be considered as an adaptive
response to cope with or make sense of a disturbing and threatening
social environment.
Paranoid cognition captures the idea that dysphoric
self-consciousness may be related with the position that people occupy
within a social system. This self-consciousness conduces to a
hypervigilant and ruminative mode to process social information that
finally will stimulate a variety of paranoid-like forms of social
misperception and misjudgment.
This model identifies four components that are essential to
understanding paranoid social cognition: situational antecedents,
dysphoric self-consciousness, hypervigilance and rumination, and
judgmental biases.
Situational antecedents
Perceived social distinctiveness, perceived evaluative scrutiny and uncertainty about the social standing.
Perceived social distinctiveness: According to the social identity theory,
people categorize themselves in terms of characteristics that made them
unique or different from others under certain circumstances.
Gender, ethnicity, age, or experience may become extremely relevant to
explain people’s behavior when these attributes make them unique in a
social group. This distinctive attribute may have influence not only in
how people are perceived, but may also affect the way they perceive
themselves.
Perceived evaluative scrutiny: According to this model, dysphoric
self-consciousness may increase when people feel under moderate or
intensive evaluative social scrutiny such as when an asymmetric
relationship is analyzed. For example, when asked about their
relationships, doctoral students remembered events that they interpreted
as significant to their degree of trust in their advisors when compared
with their advisors. This suggests that students are more willing to
pay more attention to their advisor than their advisor is motivated to
pay attention to them. Also students spent more time ruminating about
the behaviors, events, and their relationship in general.
Uncertainty about social standing: The knowledge about the social
standing is another factor that may induce paranoid social cognition.
Many researchers have argued that experiencing uncertainty about a
social position in a social system constitutes an adverse psychological
state, one which people are highly motivated to reduce.
Dysphoric self-consciousness
Refers
to an aversive form of heightened 'public self-consciousness'
characterized by the feelings that one is under intensive evaluation or scrutiny. Becoming self-tormenting will increase the odds of interpreting others' behaviors in a self-referential way.
Hypervigilance and rumination
Self-consciousness
was characterized as an aversive psychological state. According to this
model, people experiencing self-consciousness will be highly motivated
to reduce it, trying to make sense of what they are experiencing. These
attempts promote hypervigilance and rumination in a circular
relationship: more hypervigilance generates more rumination, whereupon
more rumination generates more hypervigilance. Hypervigilance can be
thought of as a way to appraise threatening social information, but in
contrast to adaptive vigilance, hypervigilance will produce elevated
levels of arousal, fear, anxiety, and threat perception.
Rumination is another possible response to threatening social
information. Rumination can be related to the paranoid social cognition
because it can increase negative thinking about negative events, and
evoke a pessimistic explanatory style.
Judgmental biases
Three main judgmental consequences have been identified:
The sinister attribution error: This bias captures the tendency
that social perceivers have to overattribute lack of trustworthiness to
others.
The overly personalistic construal of social interaction: Refers to
the inclination that paranoid perceiver has to interpret others’ action
in a disproportional self-referential way, increasing the belief that
they are the target of others’ thoughts and actions. A special kind of
bias in the biased punctuation of social interaction, which entail an
overperception of causal linking among independent events.
The exaggerated perception of conspiracy: Refers to the disposition
that the paranoid perceiver has to overattribute social coherence and
coordination to others’ actions.
Pessimism is a negative mental attitude in which an
undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists
tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question
asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empty or half full?"; in this situation, a pessimist is said to see the glass as half empty, while an optimist
is said to see the glass as half full. Throughout history, the
pessimistic disposition has had effects on all major areas of thinking.
Philosophical pessimism is the related idea that views the
world in a strictly anti-optimistic fashion. This form of pessimism is
not an emotional disposition as the term commonly connotes. Instead, it
is a philosophy or worldview that directly challenges the notion of
progress and what may be considered the faith-based claims of optimism.
Philosophical pessimists are often existential nihilists
believing that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. Their responses
to this condition, however, are widely varied and often life-affirming.
Etymology
The term pessimism derives from the Latin word pessimus meaning 'the worst'. It was first used by Jesuit critics of Voltaire's 1759 novel Candide, ou l'Optimisme. Voltaire was satirizing the philosophy of Leibniz who maintained that this was the 'best (optimum) of all possible worlds'. In their attacks on Voltaire, the Jesuits of the Revue de Trévoux accused him of pessimisme.
Philosophical pessimism
Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality was an attack on the enlightenment idea of social progress which he saw as morally decadent.
Philosophical pessimism is not a state of mind or a psychological disposition, but rather it is a worldview or ethic
that seeks to face up to perceived distasteful realities of the world
and eliminate irrational hopes and expectations (such as the Idea of Progress and religious faith)
which may lead to undesirable outcomes. Ideas which prefigure
philosophical pessimism can be seen in ancient texts such as the Dialogue of Pessimism and Ecclesiastes; maintaining that everything is hevel (literally 'vapor' or 'breath'), but could also mean 'senseless' and 'absurd'.
In Western philosophy,
philosophical pessimism is not a single coherent movement, but rather a
loosely associated group of thinkers with similar ideas and a family
resemblance to each other. In Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit,
Joshua Foa Dienstag outlines the main propositions shared by most
philosophical pessimists as "that time is a burden; that the course of
history is in some sense ironic; that freedom and happiness are incompatible; and that human existence is absurd."
Philosophical pessimists see the self-consciousness
of man as bound up with his consciousness of time and that this leads
to greater suffering than mere physical pain. While many organisms live
in the present, humans and certain species of animals can contemplate
the past and future, and this is an important difference. Human beings
have foreknowledge of their own eventual fate and this "terror" is
present in every moment of our lives as a reminder of the impermanent
nature of life and of our inability to control this change.
The philosophical pessimistic view of the effect of historical
progress tends to be more negative than positive. The philosophical
pessimist does not deny that certain areas like science can "progress"
but they deny that this has resulted in an overall improvement of the
human condition. In this sense it could be said that the pessimist views
history as ironic; while seemingly getting better, it is mostly in fact
not improving at all, or getting worse.
This is most clearly seen in Rousseau's critique of enlightenment civil
society and his preference for man in the primitive and natural state.
For Rousseau, "our souls have become corrupted to the extent that our
sciences and our arts have advanced towards perfection".
The pessimistic view of the human condition is that it is in a sense "absurd". Absurdity
is seen as an ontological mismatch between our desire for meaning and
fulfillment and our inability to find or sustain those things in the
world, or as Camus puts it: "a divorce between man and his life, the
actor and his setting". The idea that rational thought would lead to human flourishing can be traced to Socrates
and is at the root of most forms of western optimistic philosophies.
Pessimism turns the idea on its head; it faults the human freedom to
reason as the feature that misaligned humanity from our world and sees
it as the root of human unhappiness.
The responses to this predicament of the human condition by pessimists are varied. Some philosophers, such as Schopenhauer and Mainländer, recommend a form of resignation and self-denial (which they saw exemplified in Indian religions and Christian monasticism). Some followers tend to believe that "expecting the worst leads to the best." Rene Descartes even believed that life was better if emotional reactions to "negative" events were removed. Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann
asserted that with cultural and technological progress, the world and
its inhabitants will reach a state in which they will voluntarily
embrace nothingness. Others like Nietzsche, Leopardi, Julius Bahnsen and Camus
respond with a more life-affirming view, what Nietzsche called a
"Dionysian pessimism", an embrace of life as it is in all of its
constant change and suffering, without appeal to progress or hedonistic
calculus. Albert Camus indicated that the common responses to the
absurdity of life are often: Suicide, a leap of faith (as per Kierkegaard's knight of faith), or recognition/rebellion. Camus rejected all but the last option as unacceptable and inauthentic responses.
In Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Friedrich Nietzsche argued that the pre-Socratic philosophers such as Anaximander, Heraclitus (called "the Weeping Philosopher") and Parmenides
represented a classical form of pessimism. Nietzsche saw Anaximander's
philosophy as the "enigmatic proclamation of a true pessimist".
Similarly, of Heraclitus' philosophy of flux and strife he wrote:
Heraclitus
denied the duality of totally diverse worlds—a position which
Anaximander had been compelled to assume. He no longer distinguished a
physical world from a metaphysical one, a realm of definite qualities
from an undefinable "indefinite." And after this first step, nothing
could hold him back from a second, far bolder negation: he altogether
denied being. For this one world which he retained [...] nowhere shows a
tarrying, an indestructibility, a bulwark in the stream. Louder than
Anaximander, Heraclitus proclaimed: "I see nothing other than becoming.
Be not deceived. It is the fault of your short-sightedness, not of the
essence of things, if you believe you see land somewhere in the ocean of
becoming and passing-away. You use names for things as though they
rigidly, persistently endured; yet even the stream into which you step a
second time is not the one you stepped into before." The Birth of Tragedy. 5, pp. 51–52
Another Greek expressed a form of pessimism in his philosophy: the ancient Cyrenaic philosopher Hegesias
(290 BCE). Like later pessimists, Hegesias argued that lasting
happiness is impossible to achieve and that all we can do is to try to
avoid pain as much as possible.
Complete happiness cannot possibly exist; for that the body is full
of many sensations, and that the mind sympathizes with the body, and is
troubled when that is troubled, and also that fortune prevents many
things which we cherished in anticipation; so that for all these
reasons, perfect happiness eludes our grasp.
Hegesias
held that all external objects, events, and actions are indifferent to
the wise man, even death: "for the foolish person it is expedient to
live, but to the wise person it is a matter of indifference". According to Cicero, Hegesias wrote a book called Death by Starvation, which supposedly persuaded many people that death was more desirable than life. Because of this, Ptolemy II Philadelphus banned Hegesias from teaching in Alexandria.
From the 3rd century BCE, Stoicism propounded as an exercise "the premeditation of evils"—concentration on worst possible outcomes.
Baltasar Gracián
Schopenhauer engaged extensively with the works of Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658) and considered Gracián's novel El Criticón "Absolutely unique... a book made for constant use...a companion for life" for "those who wish to prosper in the great world". Schopenhauer's pessimistic outlook was influenced by Gracián, and he translated Gracián's The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence into German. He praised Gracián for his aphoristic writing style (conceptismo) and often quoted him in his works. Gracian's novel El Criticón (The Critic) is an extended allegory of the human search for happiness which turns out to be fruitless on this Earth. The Critic paints a bleak and desolate picture of the human condition. His Pocket Oracle was a book of aphorisms on how to live in what he saw as a world filled with deception, duplicity, and disillusionment.
Voltaire
Voltaire was the first European to be labeled as a pessimist due to his critique of Alexander Pope's optimistic "An Essay on Man", and Leibniz' affirmation that "we live in the best of all possible worlds." Voltaire's novel Candide is an extended criticism of theistic optimism and his Poem on the Lisbon Disaster is especially pessimistic about the state of mankind and the nature of God. Though himself a Deist, Voltaire argued against the existence of a compassionate personal God through his interpretation of the problem of evil.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau first presented the major themes of philosophical pessimism, and he has been called "the patriarch of pessimism".
For Rousseau, humans in their "natural goodness" have no sense of
self-consciousness in time and thus are happier than humans corrupted by
society. Rousseau saw the movement out of the state of nature
as the origin of inequality and mankind's lack of freedom. The
wholesome qualities of man in his natural state, a non-destructive love
of self and compassion are gradually replaced by amour propre,
self-love driven by pride and jealousy of his fellow man. Because of
this, modern man lives "always outside himself", concerned with other
men, the future, and external objects. Rousseau also blames the human
faculty of "perfectibility" and human language for tearing us away from
our natural state by allowing us to imagine a future in which we are
different than what we are now and therefore making us appear inadequate
to ourselves (and thus 'perfectible').
Rousseau saw the evolution of modern society as the replacement
of natural egalitarianism by alienation and class distinction enforced
by institutions of power. Thus The Social Contract
opens with the famous phrase "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in
chains." Even the ruling classes are not free, in fact for Rousseau
they are "greater slaves" because they require more esteem from others
to rule and must therefore constantly live "outside themselves".
Giacomo Leopardi
Though a lesser-known figure outside Italy, Giacomo Leopardi was highly influential in the 19th century, especially for Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.
In Leopardi's darkly comic essays, aphorisms, fables and parables, life
is often described as a sort of divine joke or mistake. According to
Leopardi, because of our conscious sense of time and our endless search
for truth, the human desire for happiness can never be truly satiated
and joy cannot last. Leopardi claims that "Therefore they greatly
deceive themselves, [those] who declare and preach that the perfection
of man consists in knowledge of the truth and that all his woes proceed
from false opinions and ignorance, and that the human race will at last
be happy, when all or most people come to know the truth, and solely on
the grounds of that arrange and govern their lives."
Furthermore, Leopardi believes that for man it is not possible to
forget truth and that "it is easier to rid oneself of any habit before
that of philosophizing."
Leopardi's response to this condition is to face up to these
realities and try to live a vibrant and great life, to be risky and take
up uncertain tasks. This uncertainty makes life valuable and exciting
but does not free us from suffering, it is rather an abandonment of the
futile pursuit of happiness. He uses the example of Christopher Columbus who went on a dangerous and uncertain voyage and because of this grew to appreciate life more fully.
Leopardi also sees the capacity of humans to laugh at their condition
as a laudable quality that can help us deal with our predicament. For
Leopardi: "He who has the courage to laugh is master of the world, much
like him who is prepared to die."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer had an influence upon later thinkers and artists such as Freud and Wagner
Arthur Schopenhauer's pessimism comes from his elevating of Will above reason as the mainspring of human thought and behavior. The Will is the ultimate metaphysical animating noumenon
and it is futile, illogical and directionless striving. Schopenhauer
sees reason as weak and insignificant compared to Will; in one metaphor, Schopenhauer compares the human intellect to a lame man who can see, but who rides on the shoulder of the blind giant of Will. Schopenhauer saw human desires as impossible to satisfy.
He pointed to motivators such as hunger, thirst, and sexuality as the fundamental features of the Will in action, which are always by nature unsatisfactory.
All satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is really and essentially always negative
only, and never positive. It is not a gratification which comes to us
originally and of itself, but it must always be the satisfaction of a
wish. For desire, that is to say, want, is the precedent condition of
every pleasure; but with the satisfaction, the desire and therefore the
pleasure cease; and so the satisfaction or gratification can never be
more than deliverance from pain, from a want. Such is not only every
actual and evident suffering, but also every desire whose importunity
disturbs our peace, and indeed even the deadening boredom that makes
existence a burden to us.
Schopenhauer notes that once satiated, the feeling of satisfaction
rarely lasts and we spend most of our lives in a state of endless
striving; in this sense, we are, deep down, nothing but Will. Even the
moments of satisfaction, when repeated often enough, only lead to
boredom and thus human existence is constantly swinging "like a pendulum
to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its
ultimate constituents". This ironic cycle eventually allows us to see the inherent vanity at the truth of existence (nichtigkeit) and to realize that "the purpose of our existence is not to be happy".
Moreover, the business of biological life is a war of all against
all filled with constant physical pain and distress, not merely
unsatisfied desires. There is also the constant dread of death on the
horizon to consider, which makes human life worse than animals. Reason
only compounds our suffering by allowing us to realize that biology's
agenda is not something we would have chosen had we been given a choice,
but it is ultimately helpless to prevent us from serving it.
Schopenhauer saw in artistic contemplation a temporary escape
from the act of willing. He believed that through "losing yourself" in
art one could sublimate the Will. However, he believed that only
resignation from the pointless striving of the will to live through a
form of asceticism (as those practiced by eastern monastics and by "saintly persons") could free oneself from the Will altogether.
Schopenhauer never used the term pessimism to describe his philosophy but he also didn't object when others called it that. Other common terms used to describe his thought were voluntarism and irrationalism which he also never used.
Post-Schopenhauerian pessimism
During the end-times of Schopenhauer's life and subsequent years after his death, post-Schopenhauerian pessimism became a rather popular "trend" in 19th century Germany. Nevertheless, it was viewed with disdain by the other popular philosophies at the time, such as Hegelianism, materialism, neo-Kantianism and the emerging positivism. In an age of upcoming revolutions and exciting discoveries in science,
the resigned and anti-progressive nature of the typical pessimist was
seen as a detriment to social development. To respond to this growing
criticism, a group of philosophers greatly influenced by Schopenhauer
(indeed, some even being his personal acquaintances) developed their own
brand of pessimism, each in their own unique way. Thinkers such as Julius Bahnsen, Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, Philipp Mainländer and others cultivated the ever-increasing threat of pessimism by converting Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism into what Frederick C. Beiser calls transcendental realism. The transcendental idealist thesis is that we know only the appearances of things (not things-in-themselves);
the transcendental realist thesis is that "the knowledge we have of how
things appear to us in experience gives us knowledge of
things-in-themselves."
By espousing transcendental realism, Schopenhauer's own dark
observations about the nature of the world would become completely
knowable and objective, and in this way, they would attain certainty.
The certainty of pessimism being, that non-existence is preferable to
existence. That, along with the metaphysical reality of the will, were
the premises which the "post-Schopenhauerian" thinkers inherited from
Schopenhauer's teachings. After this common starting point, each
philosopher developed his own negative view of being in their respective
philosophies. Some pessimists would "assuage" the critics by accepting
the validity of their criticisms and embracing historicism, as was the case with Schopenhauer's literary executor Julius Frauenstädt and with Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (who gave transcendental realism a unique twist). Julius Bahnsen would reshape the understanding of pessimism overall, while Philipp Mainländer set out to reinterpret and elucidate the nature of the will, by presenting it as a self-mortifying will-to-death.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
could be said to be a philosophical pessimist even though unlike
Schopenhauer (whom he read avidly) his response to the 'tragic'
pessimistic view is neither resigned nor self-denying, but a
life-affirming form of pessimism. For Nietzsche this was a "pessimism of
the future", a "Dionysian pessimism." Nietzsche identified his Dionysian pessimism with what he saw as the pessimism of the Greek pre-socratics and also saw it at the core of ancient Greek tragedy.
He saw tragedy as laying bare the terrible nature of human existence,
bound by constant flux. In contrast to this Nietzsche saw Socratic
philosophy as an optimistic refuge of those who could not bear the
tragic any longer. Since Socrates posited that wisdom could lead to
happiness, Nietzsche saw this as "morally speaking, a sort of
cowardice...amorally, a ruse".
Nietzsche was also critical of Schopenhauer's pessimism because in
judging the world negatively, it turned to moral judgments about the
world and therefore led to weakness and nihilism.
Nietzsche's response was a total embracing of the nature of the world, a
"great liberation" through a "pessimism of strength" which "does not
sit in judgment of this condition".
Nietzsche believed that the task of the philosopher was to wield this
pessimism like a hammer, to first attack the basis of old moralities and
beliefs and then to "make oneself a new pair of wings", i.e. to re-evaluate all values and create new ones.
A key feature of this Dionysian pessimism was 'saying yes' to the
changing nature of the world, this entailed embracing destruction and
suffering joyfully, forever (hence the ideas of amor fati and eternal recurrence).
Pessimism for Nietzsche is an art of living that is "good for one's
health" as a "remedy and an aid in the service of growing and struggling
life".
Albert Camus
Camus used the punishment of Sisyphus to represent the human condition.
In a 1945 article, Albert Camus wrote "the idea that a pessimistic philosophy is necessarily one of discouragement is a puerile idea." Camus helped popularize the idea of "the absurd", a key term in his famous essay The Myth of Sisyphus.
Like previous philosophical pessimists, Camus sees human consciousness
and reason as that which "sets me in opposition to all creation".
For Camus, this clash between a reasoning mind which craves meaning and
a 'silent' world is what produces the most important philosophical
problem, the 'problem of suicide'. Camus believed that people often
escape facing the absurd through "eluding" (l'esquive), a
'trickery' for "those who live not for life itself but some great idea
that will transcend it, refine it, give it a meaning, and betray it". He considered suicide and religion
as inauthentic forms of eluding or escaping the problem of existence.
For Camus, the only choice was to rebelliously accept and live with the
absurd, for "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."
Camus' response to the absurd problem is illustrated by using the Greek
mythic character of Sisyphus,
who was condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill for eternity.
Camus imagines Sisyphus while pushing the rock, realizing the futility
of his task, but doing it anyway out of rebellion: "One must imagine
Sisyphus happy."
Other forms
Epistemological
There are several theories of epistemology
which could arguably be said to be pessimistic in the sense that they
consider it difficult or even impossible to obtain knowledge about the
world. These ideas are generally related to nihilism, philosophical skepticism and relativism.
Richard Rorty, Michel Foucault, and Ludwig Wittgenstein
questioned whether our particular concepts could relate to the world in
any absolute way and whether we can justify our ways of describing the
world as compared with other ways. In general, these philosophers argue
that truth was not about getting it right or representing reality, but
was part of subjective social relations of power, or language-games that served our purposes in a particular time. Therefore, these forms of anti-foundationalism,
while not being pessimistic per se, rejects any definitions that claim
to have discovered absolute 'truths' or foundational facts about the
world as valid.
Political and cultural
Philosophical pessimism stands opposed to the optimism or even utopianism of Hegelian philosophies. Emil Cioran
claimed "Hegel is chiefly responsible for modern optimism. How could he
have failed to see that consciousness changes only its forms and
modalities, but never progresses?"
Philosophical pessimism is differentiated from other political
philosophies by having no ideal governmental structure or political
project, rather pessimism generally tends to be an anti-systematic
philosophy of individual action. This is because philosophical pessimists tend to be skeptical that any politics of social progress
can actually improve the human condition. As Cioran states, "every step
forward is followed by a step back: this is the unfruitful oscillation
of history".
Cioran also attacks political optimism because it creates an "idolatry
of tomorrow" which can be used to authorize anything in its name. This
does not mean however, that the pessimist cannot be politically
involved, as Camus argued in The Rebel.
Intellectuals like Oliver James correlate economic progress with economic inequality, the stimulation of artificial needs, and affluenza. Anti-consumerists identify rising trends of conspicuous consumption and self-interested, image-conscious behavior in culture. Post-modernists like Jean Baudrillard have even argued that culture (and therefore our lives) now has no basis in reality whatsoever.
Conservative thinkers, especially social conservatives, often perceive politics in a generally pessimistic way. William F. Buckley famously remarked that he was "standing athwart history yelling 'stop!'" and Whittaker Chambers was convinced that capitalism was bound to fall to communism, though he was himself staunchly anti-communist. Social conservatives often see the West as a decadent and nihilistic civilization which has abandoned its roots in Christianity and/or Greekphilosophy, leaving it doomed to fall into moral and political decay. Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah and Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind are famous expressions of this point of view.
Many economic conservatives and libertarians
believe that the expansion of the state and the role of government in
society is inevitable, and they are at best fighting a holding action
against it.
They hold that the natural tendency of people is to be ruled and that
freedom is an exceptional state of affairs which is now being abandoned
in favor of social and economic security provided by the welfare state. Political pessimism has sometimes found expression in dystopian novels such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Political pessimism about one's country often correlates with a desire to emigrate.
During the financial crisis of 2007–08 in the United States, the neologism "pessimism porn" was coined to describe the alleged eschatological and survivalist
thrill some people derive from predicting, reading and fantasizing
about the collapse of civil society through the destruction of the
world's economic system.
Technological and environmental
Luddites destroy machines (1812)
Technological pessimism is the belief that advances in science and
technology do not lead to an improvement in the human condition.
Technological pessimism can be said to have originated during the industrial revolution with the Luddite
movement. Luddites blamed the rise of industrial mills and advanced
factory machinery for the loss of their jobs and set out to destroy
them. The Romantic movement was also pessimistic towards the rise of technology and longed for simpler and more natural times. Poets like William Wordsworth and William Blake believed that industrialization was polluting the purity of nature.
Some social critics and environmentalists believe that globalization, overpopulation and the economic practices of modern capitalist states over-stress the planet's ecological equilibrium. They warn that unless something is done to slow this, climate change will worsen eventually leading to some form of social and ecological collapse. James Lovelock believes that the ecology
of the Earth has already been irretrievably damaged, and even an
unrealistic shift in politics would not be enough to save it. According
to Lovelock, the Earth's climate regulation system is being overwhelmed
by pollution and the Earth will soon jump from its current state into a
dramatically hotter climate.
Lovelock blames this state of affairs on what he calls
"polyanthroponemia", which is when: "humans overpopulate until they do
more harm than good." Lovelock states:
The presence of 7 billion people aiming for first-world
comforts…is clearly incompatible with the homeostasis of climate but
also with chemistry, biological diversity and the economy of the system.
An infamous anarcho-primitivist is Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber who engaged in a nationwide mail bombing campaign. In his 1995 Unabomber manifesto, he called attention to the erosion of human freedom by the rise of the modern "industrial-technological system". The manifesto begins thus:
The
Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the
human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of
us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized
society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to
indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the
Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe
damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology
will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to
greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it
will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological
suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in
"advanced" countries.
Natural resources flow through the economy and end up as waste and pollution.
"Entropy pessimism" represents a special case of technological and environmental pessimism, based on thermodynamic principles. According to the first law of thermodynamics, matter and energy is neither created nor destroyed in the economy. According to the second law of thermodynamics — also known as the entropy law — what happens in the economy is that all matter and energy is transformed from states available for human purposes (valuable natural resources) to states unavailable for human purposes (valueless waste and pollution).
In effect, all of man's technologies and activities are only speeding
up the general march against a future planetary "heat death" of degraded
energy, exhausted natural resources and a deteriorated environment — a
state of maximum entropy locally on earth; "locally" on earth, that is,
when compared to the heat death of the universe, taken as a whole.
Among other matters, the entropy pessimism position is concerned
with the existential impossibility of allocating Earth's finite stock of
mineral resources evenly among an unknown number of present and future
generations. This number of generations is likely to remain unknown to
us, as there is no way — or only little way — of knowing in advance if
or when mankind will ultimately face extinction. In effect, any conceivable intertemporal allocation of the stock will inevitably end up with universal economic decline at some future point.
Bibas writes that some criminal defense attorneys
prefer to err on the side of pessimism: "Optimistic forecasts risk
being proven disastrously wrong at trial, an embarrassing result that
makes clients angry. On the other hand, if clients plead based on their
lawyers' overly pessimistic advice, the cases do not go to trial and the
clients are none the wiser."
In the ancient world, psychological pessimism was associated with melancholy, and was believed to be caused by an excess of black bile in the body.
The study of pessimism has parallels with the study of depression. Psychologists trace pessimistic attitudes to emotional pain or even biology. Aaron Beck
argues that depression is due to unrealistic negative views about the
world. Beck starts treatment by engaging in conversation with clients
about their unhelpful thoughts. Pessimists, however, are often able to
provide arguments that suggest that their understanding of reality is
justified; as in Depressive realism or (pessimistic realism).
Deflection is a common method used by those who are depressed. They let
people assume they are revealing everything which proves to be an
effective way of hiding. The pessimism item on the Beck Depression Inventory has been judged useful in predicting suicides. The Beck Hopelessness Scale has also been described as a measurement of pessimism.
Wender and Klein point out that pessimism can be useful in some
circumstances: "If one is subject to a series of defeats, it pays to
adopt a conservative game plan of sitting back and waiting and letting
others take the risks. Such waiting would be fostered by a pessimistic
outlook. Similarly if one is raking in the chips of life, it pays to
adopt an expansive risk-taking approach, and thus maximize access to
scarce resources."
Criticism
Pragmatic criticism
Through
history, some have concluded that a pessimistic attitude, although
justified, must be avoided to endure. Optimistic attitudes are favored
and of emotional consideration. Al-Ghazali and William James rejected their pessimism after suffering psychological, or even psychosomatic
illness. Criticisms of this sort however assume that pessimism leads
inevitably to a mood of darkness and utter depression. Many philosophers
would disagree, claiming that the term "pessimism" is being abused. The
link between pessimism and nihilism
is present, but the former does not necessarily lead to the latter, as
philosophers such as Albert Camus believed. Happiness is not
inextricably linked to optimism,
nor is pessimism inextricably linked to unhappiness. One could easily
imagine an unhappy optimist, and a happy pessimist. Accusations of
pessimism may be used to silence legitimate criticism. The economist Nouriel Roubini was largely dismissed as a pessimist, for his dire but accurate predictions of a coming global financial crisis, in 2006. Personality Plus opines that pessimistic temperaments (e.g. melancholy and phlegmatic)
can be useful inasmuch as pessimists' focus on the negative helps them
spot problems that people with more optimistic temperaments (e.g. choleric and sanguine) miss.
Berlin Wall Monument (west view). The west side of the wall is covered with graffiti that reflects hope and optimism.
Optimism is an attitude
reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavor,
or outcomes in general, will be positive, favorable, and desirable. A
common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled with water to the halfway point: an optimist is said to see the glass as half full, while a pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
The term derives from the Latin optimum, meaning "best".
Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, is defined as
expecting the best possible outcome from any given situation. This is usually referred to in psychology as dispositional optimism. It thus reflects a belief that future conditions will work out for the best. For this reason, it is seen as a trait that fosters resilience in the face of stress.
Theories of optimism include dispositional models, and models of explanatory style.
Methods to measure optimism have been developed within both theoretical
systems, such as various forms of the Life Orientation Test, for the
original definition of optimism, or the Attributional Style
Questionnaire designed to test optimism in terms of explanatory style.
Variation in optimism and pessimism is somewhat heritable and reflects biological trait systems to some degree. It is also influenced by environmental factors, including family environment, with some suggesting it can be learned. Optimism may also be linked to health.
Researchers operationalize
the term differently depending on their research. As with any trait
characteristic, there are several ways to evaluate optimism, such as the
Life Orientation Test (LOT). This 8-item scale was developed in 1985 by
Michael Scheier and Charles Carver.
Dispositional optimism and pessimism
are typically assessed by asking people whether they expect future
outcomes to be beneficial or negative (see below). The LOT returns
separate optimism and pessimism scores for each individual.
Behaviourally, these two scores correlate around r = 0.5. Optimistic
scores on this scale predict better outcomes in relationships, higher social status, and reduced loss of well-being following adversity. Health preserving behaviors are associated with optimism while health-damaging behaviors are associated with pessimism.
Some have argued that optimism is the opposite end of a single dimension with pessimism, with any distinction between them reflecting factors such as social desirability. Confirmatory modelling, however, supports a two-dimensional model and the two dimensions predict different outcomes. Genetic
modelling confirms this independence, showing that pessimism and
optimism are inherited as independent traits, with the typical
correlation between them emerging as a result of a general well-being
factor and family environment influences.
It is suggested that patients with high dispositional optimism appear
to have stronger immune system since it buffers it against psychological
stressors. Optimists appear to live longer.
Explanatory style
Explanatory style
is distinct from dispositional theories of optimism. While related to
life-orientation measures of optimism, attributional style theory
suggests that dispositional optimism and pessimism are reflections of the ways people explain events, i.e., that attributions cause these dispositions. Here, an optimist would view defeat as temporary, does not apply to other cases, and is not considered their fault.
Measures of attributional style distinguish three dimensions among
explanations for events: Whether these explanations draw on internal
versus external causes; whether the causes are viewed as stable versus
unstable; and whether explanations apply globally versus being
situationally specific. In addition, the measures distinguish
attributions for positive and for negative events.
An optimistic person attributes internal, stable, and global
explanations to good things. Pessimistic explanations attribute these
traits of stability, globality, and internality to negative events, such
as difficulty in relationships.
Models of Optimistic and Pessimistic attributions show that
attributions themselves are a cognitive style – individuals who tend to
focus on the global explanations do so for all types of events, and the
styles correlate among each other. In addition to this, individuals vary
in how optimistic their attributions are for good events, and on how
pessimistic their attributions are for bad events, but these two traits
of optimism and pessimism are un-correlated.
There is much debate about the relationship between explanatory
style and optimism. Some researchers argue that optimism is simply the
lay-term for what researchers know as explanatory style. More commonly, it is found that explanatory style is quite distinct from dispositional optimism,
and the two should not be used interchangeably as they are marginally
correlated at best. More research is required to "bridge" or further
differentiate these concepts.
Origins
Optimistic Personality (modified from)
As with all psychological traits, differences in both dispositional optimism and pessimism and in attributional style are heritable. Both optimism and pessimism are strongly influenced by environmental factors, including family environment. It has been suggested that optimism may be indirectly inherited as a reflection of underlying heritable traits such as intelligence, temperament, and alcoholism.
There is evidence from twin studies that show, for instance, that the
inherited component of the dispositional optimism is about 25 percent,
making this trait a stable personality dimension and a predictor of life outcomes.
Its genetic origin, which interacts with environmental influences and
other risks, also determines the vulnerability to depression across the
lifespan. Many theories assume optimism can be learned, and research supports a modest role of family-environment acting to raise (or lower) optimism and lower (or raise) neuroticism and pessimism.
The
Life Orientation Test (LOT) was designed by Scheier and Carver (1985)
to assess dispositional optimism – expecting positive or negative
outcomes,
and is one of the more popular tests of optimism and pessimism. This
was also often used in early studies that examine the effects of these
dispositions in health-related domains.
Scheier and Carver's initial research, which surveyed college students,
found that optimistic participants were less likely to show an increase
in symptoms like dizziness, muscle soreness, fatigue, blurred vision,
and other physical complaints than pessimistic respondents.
There are eight items and four filler items in the test. Four are
positive items (e.g. "In uncertain times, I usually expect the best")
and four are negative items e.g. "If something can go wrong for me, it
will."
The LOT has been revised twice—once by the original creators (LOT-R)
and also by Chang, Maydeu-Olivares, and D'Zurilla as the Extended Life
Orientation Test (ELOT). The Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R:
Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994) consists of six items, each scored
on a 5-point scale from "Strongly disagree" to "Strongly agree" and
four filler items.
Half of the coded items are phrased in an optimistic way while the
other half in a pessimistic way. In comparison with its previous
iteration, LOT-R offers good internal consistency overtime although
there are item overlaps, making the correlation between the LOT and
LOT-R extremely high.
Attributional Style Questionnaire
This Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ: Peterson et al. 1982) is based on the explanatory style model of optimism. Subjects read a list of six positive and negative events (e.g. "you have been looking for a job unsuccessfully for some time"),
and are asked to record a possible cause for the event. They then rate
whether this is internal or external, stable or changeable, and global
or local to the event.
There are several modified versions of the ASQ including the Expanded
Attributional Style Questionnaire (EASQ), the Content Analysis of
Verbatim Explanations (CAVE), and the ASQ designed for testing the
optimism of children.
The relationship between optimism and health has also been
studied with regards to physical symptoms, coping strategies and
negative affect for those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and fibromyalgia.
It has been found that among individuals with these diseases,
optimists are not more likely than pessimists to report pain alleviation
due to coping strategies, despite differences in psychological
well-being between the two groups. A meta-analysis
has confirmed the assumption that optimism is related to psychological
well-being: "Put simply, optimists emerge from difficult circumstances
with less distress than do pessimists."
Furthermore, the correlation appears to be attributable to coping
style: "That is, optimists seem intent on facing problems head-on,
taking active and constructive steps to solve their problems; pessimists
are more likely to abandon their effort to attain their goals."
Optimists may respond better to stress: pessimists have shown
higher levels of cortisol (the "stress hormone") and trouble regulating
cortisol in response to stressors. Another study by Scheier examined the recovery process for a number of patients that had undergone surgery.
The study showed that optimism was a strong predictor of the rate of
recovery. Optimists achieved faster results in "behavioral milestones"
such as sitting in bed, walking around, etc. They also were rated by
staff as having a more favorable physical recovery. In a 6-month later
follow-up, it was found that optimists were quicker to resume normal
activities.
Optimism and well-being
A
number of studies have been done on optimism and psychological
well-being. One 30 year study undertaken by Lee et al. (2019) assessed
the overall optimism and longevity of cohorts of men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study and women from the Nurses’ Health Study.
The study found a positive correlation between higher levels of
optimism and exceptional longevity, which the study defined as a
lifespan exceeding 85 years.
Another study conducted by Aspinwall and Taylor (1990) assessed
incoming freshmen on a range of personality factors such as optimism,
self-esteem, locus of self-control, etc.
It was found that freshmen who scored high on optimism before entering
college were reported to have lower levels of psychological distress
than their more pessimistic peers, while controlling for the other
personality factors. Over time, the more optimistic students were less
stressed, less lonely, and less depressed than their pessimistic
counterparts. Thus, this study suggests a strong link between optimism
and psychological well-being.
In addition low optimism may help explain the association between caregivers' anger and reduced sense of vitality.
A recent meta-analysis of optimism supported past findings that optimism is positively correlated with life satisfaction, happiness, psychological and physical well-being and negatively correlated with depression and anxiety.
Seeking to explain the correlation, researchers find that
optimists choose healthier lifestyles. For example, optimists smoke
less, are more physically active, consume more fruit, vegetables and
whole-grain bread, and are more moderate in alcohol consumption.
Translating association into modifiability
Research
to date has demonstrated that optimists are less likely to have certain
diseases or develop certain diseases over time. By comparison, research
has not yet been able to demonstrate the ability to change an
individual's level of optimism through psychological interventions, and thereby alter the course of disease or likelihood for development of disease. Though in that same vein, an article by Mayo Clinic argues steps to change self-talk from negative to positive may shift individuals from a negative to a more positive/optimistic outlook.
Strategies claimed to be of value include surrounding oneself with
positive people, identifying areas of change, practicing positive
self-talk, being open to humor, and following a healthy lifestyle. There is also the notion of "learned optimism" in positive psychology,
which holds that joy is a talent that can be cultivated and can be
achieved through specific actions such as the challenging negative self
talk or overcoming "learned helplessness".
However, criticism against positive psychology argues that the field of
positive psychology places too much importance on "upbeat thinking,
while shunting challenging and difficult experiences to the side."
There are researchers in a study involving twins who found that optimism is largely inherited at birth.
Along with the recognition that childhood experiences determine an
individual's outlook, such studies demonstrate the genetic basis for
optimism reinforces the recognized difficulty in changing or
manipulating the direction of an adult's disposition from pessimist to
optimist.
Philosophical optimism
One
of the earliest forms of philosophical optimism was Socrates' theory of
moral intellectualism, which formed part of the thinker's enlightenment
model through the process of self-improvement.
According to the philosopher, it is possible to attain virtuous life by
leading and completing moral perfection that is attained through
philosophical self-examination. He maintained that knowledge of moral
truth is necessary and sufficient for leading a good life.
In his philosophical investigations, Socrates followed a model that did
not merely focus on the intellect or reason but a balanced practice
that also consider the emotion as an important contributor to the
richness of human experience.
Distinct from a disposition to believe that things will work out,
there is a philosophical idea that, perhaps in ways that may not be
fully comprehended, the present moment is in an optimum state. This
view that all of nature - past, present, and future - operates by laws
of optimization along the lines of Hamilton's principle in the realm of physics is countered by views such as idealism, realism, and philosophical pessimism. Philosophers often link the concept of optimism with the name of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who held that we live in the best of all possible worlds (le meilleur des mondes possibles), or that God created a physical universe that applies the laws of physics. The concept was also reflected in an aspect of Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire's early philosophy, one that was based on Isaac Newton's view that described a divinely ordered human condition. This philosophy would also later emerge in Alexander Pope's Essay on Man.
Leibniz proposed that it was not in God's power to create a perfect world, but among possible worlds, he created the best. In one of his writings, he responded to the Blaise Pascal
philosophy of awe and desperation in the face of the infinite by
claiming that infinity should be celebrated. While Pascal advocated for
making man's rational aspirations more humble, Leibniz was optimistic
about the capacity of human reason to further extend itself.
This idea was mocked by Voltaire in his satirical novel Candide as baseless optimism of the sort exemplified by the beliefs of one of its characters Dr. Pangloss, which are the opposite of his fellow traveller Martin's pessimism and emphasis on free will. The optimistic position is also called Panglossianism and became an adjective for excessive, even stupendous, optimism. The phrase "panglossian pessimism" has been used
to describe the pessimistic position that, since this is the best of
all possible worlds, it is impossible for anything to get any better.
Conversely, philosophical pessimism might be
associated with an optimistic long-term view because it implies that no
change for the worse is possible. Later, Voltaire found it difficult to
reconcile Leibniz' optimism with human suffering as demonstrated by the
earthquake that devastated Lisbon in 1755 as well as the atrocities committed by the pre-revolutionary France against its people.
Optimalism
Philosophical optimalism, as defined by Nicholas Rescher, holds that this universe exists because it is better than the alternatives. While this philosophy does not exclude the possibility of a deity, it also does not require one, and is compatible with atheism.
Rescher explained that the concept can stand on its own feet, arguing
that there is no necessity to seeing optimalism realization as divinely
instituted because it is a naturalistic theory in principle.
Psychological optimalism, as defined by the positive psychologistTal Ben-Shahar,
means willingness to accept failure while remaining confident that
success will follow, a positive attitude he contrasts with negative perfectionism.
Perfectionism can be defined as a persistent compulsive drive toward
unattainable goals and valuation based solely in terms of
accomplishment.
Perfectionists reject the realities and constraints of human ability.
They cannot accept failures, delaying any ambitious and productive
behavior in fear of failure again. This neuroticism can even lead to clinical depression and low productivity.
As an alternative to negative perfectionism, Ben-Shahar suggests the
adoption of optimalism. Optimalism allows for failure in pursuit of a
goal, and expects that while the trend of activity is towards the
positive, it is not necessary to always succeed while striving towards
goals. This basis in reality prevents the optimalist from being
overwhelmed in the face of failure.
Optimalists accept failures and also learn from them, which encourages further pursuit of achievement.
Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar believes that Optimalists and Perfectionists show
distinct different motives. Optimalists tend to have more intrinsic,
inward desires, with a motivation to learn, while perfectionists are
highly motivated by a need to consistently prove themselves worthy.
Optimalism has also been classified into two: product optimalism
and process optimalism. The former is described as an outlook that looks
to provide the realization of the best possible result while the latter
looks for a maximization of the chances of achieving the best possible
result.
Others classify it either as full-scale, one that implies determinism,
or weak determinism, which claims that we have the best laws and initial
conditions.
Some sources also distinguish the concept from optimism since it does
not focus on how things are going well but on how things are going as
well as possible.
