Pessimism: Hand in Hand with our Health

Pessimism: Hand in Hand with our Health

Raul Lopez

HS301

What affects does pessimism pose to the health of an individual or the human population? Pessimism and the effect of our mind or the connections of our mind to our bodies have been more of an interesting aspect of healthcare education in the recent years. “The effect the mind has on the body is an interesting and heated debate”(Karren, Smith, Hafen, Jenkins 2010). How the outlook on our lives future and our minds link to our overall health is connected to pessimism. The way our minds have control over how our bodies will react to a disease or perhaps help the sick heal is only the surface of how our way of thinking affects our body. How far back optimism is dated and how it was linked to certain illnesses will be in part a subject that will continuously be researched and challenged. Pessimism being considered a type of emotion or a way people carry out their everyday life will be researched and looked at in this paper. How pessimism affects the body or how it can become a problem for the lives of people struggling with everyday disease. How pessimism is separating itself from its counterpart known as optimism.

Pessimism is the negative view of the future or a certain situation as well as it’s the opposite of optimism. “Pessimistic explanations for negative events are those that are internal, stable, and global, that is, adversity is attributed to characteristics of ones self, factors that are likely to endure through time, and circumstances that affect many domains of our lives” (Chang 2001). Pessimism in conjunction with our mind can mean an unhealthier life. Pessimism and optimism though closely related to the definition of life outlook, but they opposites in views and health effects. “Optimism and pessimism emerged as distinct constructs due to substantive differences” (Kubzansky, Kubzansky, Maselko 2004).

The beginning of pessimism can be seen as far back in history as anyone could imagine. “Pessimistic theories spread from Asiatic East to Egypt and Europe. Three centuries before the Christian era, there arose the philosophy of Hegesias, which maintained that experience was generally deceptive and that enjoyment was quickly followed by satiety and disgust” (Metchnicolf, Shlesinger 1908). The ability to narrow a time in history when pessimism came to light can only mean the importance of ones outlook of the present and future and the effects it has. Pessimism has since become of much greater importance. Pessimism was not focused on as much as optimism, but it has since been becoming a deeper issue in health.

Studies have shown not only that pessimism exists, but also that it can actually be tracked within the human memory and it can gauge how an individual will react to certain stimuli. “More pessimistic individual formed connections among positive stimuli, and broke connections among positive and sad stimuli in working memory more slowly than did less pessimistic individuals; levels of optimism/pessimism did not affect the rate with which individuals formed and broke connections among neutral representation in working memory”(Levens, Gotlib 2012). The ability of controlling our mind with such pessimistic or optimistic thoughts is just the surface of what has been researched. Changing how a person thinks about the future of a certain circumstance can change the way the mind views the negativity or how the body reacts to a negative assault. With these findings it was also found that pessimism had effects in the cardio vascular disease and inflammation within the vessels of the body. “Our results add to the growing body of literature on the effect psychosocial factors on cardiovascular disease development and progression”(Brita, Ana, Diez-Roux, Seeman, Ronjut, Shea, Cushman 2010). Cardiovascular disease is said to be one of the leading causes of death in the United States.

The ability to examine pessimism in a person and interpreting the data has been a debate that many people have attempted to do and have seen some challenge. “After reexamination of a well-cited study by well known Marshall et al (1992), which demonstrated that optimism correlates stronger with extraversion than does pessimism and pessimism correlates stronger with neuroticism than does optimism, and these results lent support to their claim that optimism and pessimism are two separate constructs. We replicated the findings by Marshall et al (1992) and after item valence was controlled such pattern of relationships was greatly reduced”(Kam, Meyer2011). The correlation of pessimism to a person’s character is a slippery slope that is difficult to pin point and determine what type of personality is prone to pessimism instead of optimism. The ability to separate optimism from pessimism requires caution and very minuet changes that not many want to tackle.

Some trends of sickness associated with pessimism instead of optimism have been found in some reports. After a study done in the European Union workforce of absences due to sickness. “Dispositional pessimism, but not optimism, predicted the amount of absence also when taking into account the effects of age and the work environment”(Hystad, Bye 2011). Being able to depict a tendency of absences and sickness among a group of people is a huge step towards narrowing in on the health effects of pessimism. Specifically the ability to have the control over fixing such a problem as absences in a workplace by attempting to change the workforce’s attitudes and future outlook can enhance productivity, thus improving everyone’s health. Even though research has found some similarities with absences and pessimism its not always the case. In contrast to such a finding another study of pessimism correlation to other health symptoms can be contradictory. “The stronger Hypothesis, that a pessimistic explanatory style is a risk factor for depressive symptoms, has met conflicting findings” (Chang 2001). Trying to categorize pessimism with a specific illness, such as depressive symptoms can stir up controversy and can be incorrect information.

What makes people more pessimistic than optimistic? One study of socioeconomic status in Europe concluded “results suggest that lower socioeconomic status people view the future in a strikingly more negative light but are almost as likely as higher socioeconomic status groups to expect good events in the future”(Robb, Simon, Wardle 2009). Pessimism affects a wide range of people, but in the study mentioned it affected the lower income demographic, thus being an example of why some populations are more pessimistic than others. “Dispositional optimism was associated less health pessimism and life event stress was associated with greater pessimism among those in good objective health” (Ruthing, Hanson, Pederson, Weber, Chipperfield 2011). Stress levels can create pessimism and in turn pessimism can create further health problems, which can become a vicious cycle.

Obviously changing the way someone thinks cant make you healthy, but it does help in becoming healthier or preventing further health complications. “Defense pessimism, although perhaps in some sense a special case, suggests that personality places limits on the extent to which one can assume that positive thinking always leads to positive outcomes” (Chang 2001). Optimism contrary to pessimism is attributed to good health, but a mental characteristic does not always make things better or worse.

In conclusion, pessimism can be categorized as an overall mental attitude. Whether it is affecting the attitude of an illness or creating a new one, remaining positive and optimistic can only help a bad situation. Some of the effects of pessimism on the cardiovascular system and in comprehensive sickness can determine how to approach improvement of health from the inside out. Pessimism and the effects of a human mind to the health of the entire body is a young research that will only flourish and teach everyone how to become a healthier person. Avoiding a pessimistic attitude is what the population should strive for, if not for health at least for better control of ones total life.

References

Brita, R., Ana, V., Diez-Roux, , Seeman, T., Ranjit, N., Shea, S., & Cushman, M. (2010). Association of optimism and pessimism with inflammation and homeostasis in the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis. Psychosomatic Medicine, 72(2), 134-140.

Chang, E.C. (2001). Optimism and Pessimism: Implications for theory, research, and practice. (1ed). Washington DC: American Psychology Association.

Hystad, S.W., & Bye, H.H. (2012). Dispositional pessimism but not optimism related to sickness absence caused by musculoskeletal symptoms. Personality & Individual Differences, 52 (2), 207-212.

Kam, C., & Myer, J.P. (2012). Do optimism and pessimism have different relationships with personality dimensions?. Personality & Individual Differences, 52 (2), 123-127.

Karren, K. J., Smith, L. N., Hafen, B. Q., & Jenkins, K. J. (2010). Mind/body health the effect of attitudes, emotions and relationships. (4 ed., pp. 429-437). San Francisco,CA: Pearson Education.

Kubzansky, L.D., Kubzansky, P.E., & Maselko, J. (2004). Optimism and pessimism in the context of health: Bipolar opposites or separate constructs?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 943-956.

Levens, S.M., & Gotlib, I.H. (2012). The effects of optimism and pessimism on updating emotional information in working memory. Cognition and Emotion, 26(2), 341-350

Metchnicolf, E., & Shlesinger, E.B. (1908). The prolongation of life, optimistic studies. New York: Putnam.

Robb, K.A., Simon, A.E., & Wadle, J. (2009). Socioeconomis disparities in optimism and pessimism. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 16(4), 331-338.

Ruthing, J. C., Hanson, B. L., Pedersen, H., Weber, A., & Chipperfield, J. G. (2011). Later life optimism, pessimism and realism: psychosocial contributors and health correlates. Psychology & Health, 26(7), 835-853.