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Defensive Pessimism
Defensive pessimism is a strategy used by people who are anxious about an upcoming event. They set unrealistically low expectations before going into a situation and take steps to avoid poor performance. Defensive pessimism involves over-preparation.
For example, someone preparing for a job interview might convince themselves that the interview is going to be a disaster. The anxiety of this likelihood helps to prepare them for the job interview. The result is that they do exceptionally well.
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Self-handicapping
Self-handicapping is where an individual will create obstacles for themselves before an ability-evaluating event. If it turned out poorly, the obstacles became an excuse or explanation for the failure. If it turned out positive, the obstacles became conquered hurdles.
Self-ha...
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Defensive pessimism vs pessimism
- Pessimists only expect bad things to happen. And this leads to increased anxiety and decreased perceived goal importance.
- Defensive pessimists tend to reflect about, or plan for, their performance. This leads to increased perceived goal importance, increased levels of e...
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Benefits of Defensive Pessimism
When comparing defensive pessimists to anxious people who do not practice defensive pessimism, the defensive pessimists show these benefits:
- Their self-esteem and satisfaction increase over time.
- They perform better academically
- They form more supportive friendship net...
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Defensive pessimism or strategic optimism
- Research found that defensive pessimists will do best when they can think through possible negative outcomes.
- Strategic optimists will do best when they avoid thinking about possible negative outcomes.
Pessimism can have positive effects. If you are an anxious person, try...
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Defensive Pessimism
- While normally pessimism means blaming yourself for the negative outcomes, defensive pessimism takes this at a whole new level, harnessing the negative feeling and using it as a stepping stone towards eventual success. It makes use of the negative inclination and brings une...
Wired for pessimism
Pessimism comes naturally to people because thinking about the bad stuff that could happen helps us to prepare for survival.
The problem is that pessimists think bad events are permanent and unchangeable. "I think my interview is going to be a disaster." We need to learn to recogn...
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