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How often do you pay attention to the explanations that you give to the things that happen to you? Do you know if you tend to blame yourself when something bad happens to you? Or maybe you tend to give other people/circumstances credit when something good happens to you?
If you are like most people, you were never taught about explanatory style and so you never thought much about it. This is unfortunate, because research shows that your explanatory style has a big impact on your well-being.
Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, found that people tend to use one of two explanatory styles when it comes to understanding the things that happen to them: a pessimistic explanatory style and an optimistic explanatory style.
The two explanatory styles differ in the following dimensions:
Personal - me vs. not me
Pervasive - everything vs. not everything
Permanent - always vs. not always
When something bad happens:
People with a tendency toward a pessimistic explanatory style will tend to:
Personal - blame themselves
Pervasive - think that everything else will be impacted by this one negative event
Permanent - think that things will always be bad
People with a tendency toward an optimistic explanatory style will tend to:
Personal - blame everything/everybody but themselves
Pervasive - know that this was only one negative event but other things are still good
Permanent - know that this too shall pass
When something good happens:
People with a tendency toward a pessimistic explanatory style will tend to:
Personal - credit everything/everybody but themselves
Pervasive - think that this was only one positive event but other things are still bad
Permanent - think that the good won't last
People with a tendency toward an optimistic explanatory style will tend to:
Personal - credit themselves
Pervasive - see everything else through the lens of this one positive event
Permanent - think that things will always be good
Now you might ask yourself, so who is right? Or, so what is the problem here?
It is true that unrealistic optimism can be misleading; however, most people face the opposite problem; they are being unrealistically pessimistic, and research shows that pessimism correlates with lower life satisfaction, lower well-being, and unsatisfying relationships.
So what can you do about it?
Practice the optimistic explanatory style!
Think of one bad thing and one good thing that happened to you in the past two weeks and write down the optimistic explanatory style for both. Use the image below to help you:
Example: Optimistic Explanatory style
I got a promotion
Me: I worked hard and achieved what I wanted.
Always: I always do well when I put in the effort.
Everything: I feel very blessed in general!
I got fired
Not Me: The company is not doing well. Five other people were fired.
Not Always: I guess this time it was my turn. Two years ago they fired a bunch of people and I got to stay.
Not everything: It sucks but at least I get to go back home to my loving family.
This practice is based on the following research:
Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. Vintage