Battle Royale: Optimists vs Pessimists

Everybody’s always bagging on pessimists and telling everybody they should be more optimistic. Well, nuts to that! There are plenty of benefits from being a pessimist. Although being an optimist still wins in basically every category ☹ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:05Josh Clark?

  Introducing Voices of Vivgard. Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Efgart Tigamod Alpha F-Cab. And this new show features firsthand stories from people living with a rare disease. Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivgard. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  All right, everybody in Canada, we have a pretty big announcement. We are finally going to do our first big, big tour of Canada. We're going to announce the dates and the theaters in cities here first, and then we're going to give you all the ticket info.

• 1:51Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  How does that sound?

• 1:52Josh Clark?

  It sounds great, Chuck. Where are we going to go first?

• 1:55Speaker 03

  On June 25th, we're going to be in Montreal at the Olympique de Montreal. The next night on the 26th, we're going to be going to Ottawa, the Hard Rock Live Ottawa. And then on the 27th, finish up in Toronto at Massey Hall.

• 2:08Josh Clark?

  And then we're going to walk. To the next show, so it's going to take us a few weeks.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  That's right. On July 23rd, we're going to be in Vancouver at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Friday, the 24th of July, we're going to be in Calgary at Jack Singer Concert Hall at Art Commons. And we're going to wind it up in Winnipeg on the 25th at Burton Cummings Theatre.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. So tickets go on sale today, everybody, December 16th, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern Time and going all the way to Friday, December 19th at 10 a.m. Local Time. We're going to have an artist pre-sale. You can buy your tickets early. Just go to stuffyoushouldknow.com and click on the tour button and then click on your city. And when you go to checkout, use the promo code SYSKLIVE. And if you miss all that, don't worry, tickets go on general sale on Friday, December 19th at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. And again, you can get all of the tickets and info you need at stuffyoushouldknow.com. And we will see you this summer, Canada.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 3:16Josh Clark?

  Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan. And we're just going to do a great job here today on Stuff You Should Know.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Hi, everybody.

• 3:27Josh Clark?

  Feeling good, Chuck.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Feeling great, Louis.

• 3:31Josh Clark?

  That's right. Looking great, Louis.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Uh, you want to hear something funny?

• 3:37Josh Clark?

  I do, always.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  You hear that?

• 3:42Josh Clark?

  Is that your new Windows?

• 3:44Speaker 03

  No, that is, uh, new Windows? What does that mean? That is, uh, I, we were not able to stay in our home this week because, as you know, because I've told you this, because we're getting our electric panel redone. So I was not able to print out my stuff as usual. And where we were staying, um, you know, at a friend's, they allowed me to print. But all they had was card stock. So that is the sound of heavy duty research.

• 4:13Josh Clark?

  Man, that's like half a tree right there.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  I know. I feel pretty bad, but God, it feels so good in my hand.

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, is this your new thing?

• 4:20Speaker 03

  I don't, I could not justify that, but boy, it feels good. Maybe for the live shows, because, you know, over, over the course of a tour, which is happening next year, everybody.

• 4:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, we're, we're going out on tour, everyone, soon, starting January, then April, and then the summer for Canada.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  That's right. But yeah, that, you know how those, that document gets a little tattered over time? So I might card stock it.

• 4:44Josh Clark?

  I like that. I call that tour kisses.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  Tour, oh, I thought that was something else, like after the end of the tour, when we make out a little bit.

• 4:52Josh Clark?

  We don't talk about that.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  All right.

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  We don't have a name for that.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 4:58Josh Clark?

  Chuck, we're talking today, not about tour kisses of any variety, but about optimism and pessimism.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  I like this one.

• 5:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I do, too. This is, Olivia helped us with this. And this is one of those ones where, when, you know, it was, I knew very little about what it actually is compared to what I thought I knew. And I love ones like that.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, same.

• 5:20Josh Clark?

  Optimism and pessimism, as pretty much everyone knows, is this, the, the idea that you have like a sunny disposition, or maybe you're gloomy and Eeyore-ish.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:31Josh Clark?

  I was going back and reading some Eeyore quotes. Man, that guy was great. If you want to entertain yourself, just read A. A. Mill Eeyore quotes and you'll be delighted. But the upshot of this is that that's not really the best description of optimism and pessimism.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  That may be your earliest upshot, by the way.

• 5:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, is it? I need to break that record next time, then.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:52Josh Clark?

  I'll say, hey, and welcome to the upshot.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  If you ever go solo, that'd be a great Josh Clark only podcast, the upshot with Josh Clark.

• 5:58Josh Clark?

  And if I need to break that, I can say upshot and upshot to the upshot.

• 6:04Josh Clark?

  At any rate, the long and short of what I'm talking about is that our views of optimism and pessimism aren't exactly right, at least as far as psychology is concerned. And in that sense, it kind of confounds things because I found some of this stuff a little hard to wrap my brain around because my brain's been so primed by pop psychology to think of these things as this, when actually we're talking about them like that.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Is that what it was? Because I had the same thing where like I spent more time on this than things that were seemingly more difficult to understand.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  That's the only explanation I can think of. It was preconceived notions.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you're right. Shall we go back and just talk about the word? Because I thought that was sort of interesting in itself.

• 6:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Was that the original word comes from French optimisme. That was coined in the early 1700s by a philosopher named Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, or I guess Leibniz. And that's interesting enough. That's fine. The idea was that God optimized the universe for good and minimized evil. But what I thought was super interesting with the word pessimism was literally made up just to counter that, like as a straw man term for people to write and say, well, no, I don't really think so. So they made up the word pessimism.

• 7:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought that was interesting, too. Although if you look at it from, you know, this whole thing finds its roots in philosophy, it's not surprising because philosophers love to make up stuff to tear one another's arguments apart, right?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, good point.

• 7:34Josh Clark?

  I read that Voltaire wrote candide to mock Leibniz and his idea of the optimized universe because he thought it was so preposterous.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 7:42Josh Clark?

  But you hit on something here, like our, the entire concept of optimism and pessimism is rooted in philosophy, not psychology.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:51Josh Clark?

  And there's pessimism kind of went on to have its own career, aside from optimism. Schopenhauer came up with philosophical pessimism, which is the basis of all life is suffering. Everybody's heard that one.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:06Josh Clark?

  And/or experienced it. And then there are a couple of other versions of philosophical pessimism that I thought were pretty interesting. The most, um, the one that grabbed me the most is this idea that there's more evil in the world than good. So evil exists in greater quantities. But it's also of greater quality, too. So a small amount of evil can spoil a very large amount of good.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Oh, I agree with that, I think.

• 8:31Josh Clark?

  I, I do too. I thought of a, a good example is, let's say you have an executive who works at a charity and they get caught stealing money from that charity. Well, when word gets out, a lot of people probably are gonna stop giving to that charity. And then the good that charity was doing for other people is gonna dry up all because of the one act of that one person.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:51Josh Clark?

  Holds true.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  Let's say you throw a birthday party for your kid and the whole, the whole day goes great. And at the end, some, some little jerk kid spoils it all by doing just this one thing. Like smashes your kid's face in the cake or something.

• 9:07Josh Clark?

  Oh, man. Talk about an upshot.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  But I think the long and short of this sort of, uh, the early philosophical stuff was, it was way more sort of broad as like, you know, the whole morality of the universe and

• 9:24Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  since then, we've really narrowed it down more to like, uh, like you're just very personal outlook on stuff.

• 9:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And it's gotten even more kind of refined than that. The idea that, that we should use or seek optimism, we should optimize our optimistic outlook.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:45Josh Clark?

  is pretty old. William James, um, who essentially founded modern psychology as a field, the late 19th, early 20th century. He was basically talking about that very issue too. It got picked up about 50 years later by Abraham Maslow, who came up with the hierarchy of needs. He also said, hey, yeah, we're really into this abnormal psychology because it's really interesting. But we should focus on like optimizing people's happiness. We'll call it positive psychology.

• 10:14Josh Clark?

  And I remember that. Do you remember when we started writing at How Stuff Works?

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 10:18Josh Clark?

  And like every third article we wrote was about happiness.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:22Josh Clark?

  There's like a whole happiness craze. That came out of Maslow's whole positive psychology thing being picked up and dusted off in the late 90s.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I remember even in the 80s and 90s, and I don't know if this came from, and we're going to talk a lot about this guy, Martin Seligman. He was in the 90s, he was the president of the American Psychological Association. Uh, he talked a lot about positive psychology, but I remember a lot about just PMA, your positive mental attitude. And improving your PMA, and that was just sort of the key to everything, man. If you can just, if you can just get your head right and that PMA right, like everything's going to fall into place for you.

• 10:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I mean, I, I remember thinking Martin Seligman, I thought he came up with positive psychology. I didn't realize it was an already existing thing. But that was so pushed and peddled, what you just described around 2008, 2009, that I thought this guy was a total fruit loop. But then looking into this stuff, his research on optimism and pessimism, I'm like, oh, this actually, this dude's pretty, pretty with it. And I guess maybe being grown up, a little less cynical, um, certainly less cigarette smoky.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 11:29Josh Clark?

  In that kind of hindsight, I'm like, I think there's actually nothing wrong with trying to, to figure out how to, how people can be as happy as possible. There's a problem with foisting it on people and saying, you have to be happy. There's something wrong with you. You're not happy. That's not what these people are talking about. They're just trying to figure out things that people can do to make themselves happier if they feel like they need to make themselves happier.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. And, and as we'll see, you know, we'll get to like studies and stuff, but there's, there's definitely plenty of benefits to trying to be positive and have an optimistic outlook. Uh, as far as, I mean, we'll, we'll get to all the different things, including like real health outcomes.

• 12:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  But there are also some positives to pessimism, as we'll learn, which was not surprising, but once I read it, it kind of, you know, a lot of that makes a lot of sense to me.

• 12:17Josh Clark?

  Bravo, baby.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  One big thing, if you look at the, like, the, how psychology really views it today, and this is sort of true across a lot of psychology, is sort of a nature and nurture thing, or in this case, they refer to it as state versus trait. State meaning, like, are you feeling that way right now? Or is it generally your trait as a person of like, oh, nothing good ever happens to me? And it's not just like I'm having a bad day or something.

• 12:47Josh Clark?

  Right. You can kind of think of states as moods and traits as your personality.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 12:52Josh Clark?

  One's way more stable than the other. And psychology tends to focus more on the trait side because they want to figure out what it is that makes people actually adopt or grow up or be bestowed genetically, who knows? With an outlook on life that's way more positive than somebody else who may even have been, like, in the womb with them but raised in a different, different house. You know, like, twin studies have shown there's actually huge variations in pessimism and optimism among twins who were separated at birth.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. Those studies are always really telling to me because

• 13:31Speaker 03

  that's probably not the hugest cohort, but I think it just speaks a lot to a lot of different things.

• 13:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and there's a lot of really unethical studies that were carried out with twins, too.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Like, I imagine splitting them up, right?

• 13:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I don't, yeah, I think there was a researcher at some point in the 70s, maybe, who specifically was splitting up twins to study them.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  All right, I'm gonna put on my optimist cap and just think that everything worked out great for them because they were eventually reunited.

• 13:59Josh Clark?

  That's wonderful.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  So, when you talk about the psychology side of things, there's a couple of ways that they like to look at it, which is, which are dispositional and attributional. Dispositional is how we predict future events. And attributional, obviously, is like, basically saying like, this happened because of this, assigning either credit or blame for the reason that something good or bad happened to you.

• 14:25Josh Clark?

  Right. And those two are trait-based.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:29Josh Clark?

  Optimistic or pessimistic views. It's not, we're no longer talking about state and trait. These are all traits from what we're talking about. Like, this is how you view life, right?

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:39Josh Clark?

  One of the first tests of this that has proven to be really viable and valid, it's called the life orientation test, the LOT. That was in 1985 and I think in the mid 90s, they revised it. So it's the LOT dash R, LOT dash revised.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Is that what it stands for? I kind of figured, but that didn't bother looking.

• 14:59Josh Clark?

  Sure. Anytime you see the R with something like that, it almost certainly is revised.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:05Josh Clark?

  Well, it could also be revved up, I guess.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, or really the right test.

• 15:10Josh Clark?

  Right. The other letters are just kind of implied.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. The LOT was conceived by two dudes named Michael Shire and Charles Carver.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  And what they were trying to do, and did a pretty good job of it, I think, was measure,

• 15:26Speaker 03

  you know, I talked about dispositional, which is how we predict future events. They're trying to measure dispositional optimism and pessimism with this test.

• 15:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So what they found is that, like I said, the test is actually really reliable. That was the word I was looking for before.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:42Josh Clark?

  Because if you take this test, you know, at 50, you take it again on a totally different day, in a totally different state, in a totally different state of mind.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:52Josh Clark?

  At 55, you're probably going to get roughly the same score, right? So it is a very reliable test. Interestingly, what they found is that over the course of life, optimism tends to rise and pessimism tends to fall from young adulthood to middle age.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:08Josh Clark?

  And then it starts to decline, which I can tell you firsthand, that is totally true.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't want to self-reflect too much on this one.

• 16:19Josh Clark?

  Well, something that I'm really hanging on to is I've been told that like your 40s are far and away your worst decade.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've heard that.

• 16:26Josh Clark?

  Almost across the board, you've got way more responsibility, like you're not as young anymore. Your body's starting to change, like it's just a bad decade. 50s, it starts to pick up. But I remember we talked about this before. In your 60s, your happiness starts to go back up to levels that it was when you were younger.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 16:42Josh Clark?

  So I'm really holding out for my 60s, man, I'll tell you that.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Well, I'm closer than you, that for once, it's a benefit.

• 16:49Josh Clark?

  I know, I'm jelly.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  So the LOT R, which I guess it could stand for reliable. Yeah. So the lot R comes along, the revised test, it is 10 questions, six of them are scored, four of them are fillers and the scored ones are things like, I think Livia found these exact questions. In uncertain times, I usually expect the best. If something can go wrong for me, it will. And you're responding to how much you agree with something. And they score it in a pretty straightforward way where from zero to 24, where zero is very low optimism and high pessimism and 24, man, you are maxed out optimist.

• 17:29Josh Clark?

  I know.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:30Josh Clark?

  You got a permagrin, right?

• 17:32Speaker 03

  I guess so.

• 17:33Josh Clark?

  I took that test. I actually found the test that like a clinician would give to like a patient. It had like all the, all the explanations and all that stuff on it.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. You gonna reveal your score?

• 17:44Josh Clark?

  So out of 24, I scored 11 and I was like, that doesn't sound very good. And I looked at the explanation and scoring and it says below 13 is lower than typical optimism and may warrant clinical attention. So I got really upset about this because that's like basically the test scoring academic version of going, ouch.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. Ooh, I want to take that test. So send that to me, will you?

• 18:08Josh Clark?

  You should. I'll send it to you.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 18:10Josh Clark?

  But I went on, I guess a bit of a tailspin. So I tried to make myself feel better. I went and listened to some Kenny G to brighten my mood.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  That'll do it.

• 18:18Josh Clark?

  And I was just sitting there. I realized I was just sitting there waiting for him to screw up eventually. So I stopped listening to Kenny G.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  That's not gonna happen.

• 18:25Josh Clark?

  Alone again naturally. And then everything was all right again.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  Okay, that's good. Attributational optimism or pessimism is what we mentioned earlier is the other side of that coin. And that's when you're either saying like, this thing that was good in my life is happened because of this good thing only, or this bad thing that happened, happened because of this bad thing only. It's basically assigning blame to

• 18:50Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  what happens in your life. And if you're, you know, some of this stuff is kind of no brainer. If you're optimistic, you are much more prone to attribute negative events to a specific thing like, hey, things usually work out for me and this didn't just because of this. Whereas if you're pessimistic. Pessimist, it's like, no, this happened to me just because this kind of stuff always happens to me.

• 19:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and in the same vein, if you're a pessimist and something good happens to you, like that was just one in a million chance, it's never gonna happen again.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  That makes me so sad.

• 19:19Josh Clark?

  It is, but that's, that's usually how it, how it works on this test, the attributional style questionnaire. I looked at that one, too. That's a Martin Seligman joint. And it's 12 questions, 12 situations, actually, where it says, so for example, one of them will say, a friend compliments you on your appearance. And then it asks you to write in what the cause was, right? Like, you got some new duds or something like that.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Right, fresh haircut.

• 19:45Josh Clark?

  I've got an even better example. There's one, it said, you've been looking for a job unsuccessfully for a long time. Then you'd write in the cause. Say you said it was a bad economy, or you even said, I'm not good at interviewing. Then it says, okay, they ask you questions about the cause, like, how much of that is due to the actions of yourself

• 20:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:06Josh Clark?

  versus other causes?

• 20:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:08Josh Clark?

  And so you might say like, well, I'm going through a bad spell right now, so, you know, it's, it's probably me and my gloomy nature right now. And they'll say, well, how likely is it that the issue's going to be present the next time, say, you interview? You can say, well, I expect to be feeling a lot better next time, so maybe I'll, I'll be doing a little better. And then how much does it extend to other parts of your life? So, there's 12 of those, and from that, apparently you can glean quite clearly whether somebody leans pessimist or optimist, based on their responses, because again, it's, do things happen because you screwed up?

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:44Josh Clark?

  Or because you are capable of achieving good things? Is it always that way? If you, if, if things go wrong for you, is that just par for the course? And then if something goes wrong for you, does your whole life just get disrupted? Like, those things he figured out are actually really predictive, and it makes a lot of sense.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting. It's almost like someone who is like a self-actualized person, as opposed to someone who feels like they're just sort of a victim in life.

• 21:12Josh Clark?

  Uh, yeah, for sure.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  You know?

• 21:14Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  So Martin Seligman, once again, uh, he put forth this idea that though, um, there was an antidote to this idea of learned helplessness, which is this, I imagine it's awful, this really draining thought that, um, I just can't control anything that happens and all these negative things that happen to me, like, I can't do anything about that. Uh, he put forth the idea of learned optimism, um, but that has to go on the assumption that optimism and pessimism aren't just these fixed things in your life and it's more of a, a strategy that you employ.

• 21:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which is really significant because I think it's easy for people who say are like, have a generally gloomy outlook to forget that there's plenty of times where they are excited about the future, where they do expect something good to come for, like, down, down the road for them.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:04Josh Clark?

  It's just easy to get caught up in that. So to look at them as like, no, this isn't like just your genes, like, making you move and walk like Master Blaster from, um, Mad Max, right? Um, this is just you not even being aware that you're adopting these things as strategies to kind of negotiate life because this is the strategy you learned based on all these other different events in your life that led up to this, which means Chuck, and this is the most hopeful thing of all, you can learn and unlearn strategies that you're not aware you're using by recognizing them as strategies.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, and by the way, I just realized, I cannot say that movie character name from the Mad Max without saying it, like Tina Turner. I could only say Master Blaster.

• 22:49Josh Clark?

  It sounds like, it sounds like Tim Curry doing Tina Turner.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Wow, all right.

• 22:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I like it.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like that too.

• 22:57Josh Clark?

  How's Tim Curry doing these days?

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, I actually saw something recently where he was interviewed and he has recovered from his stroke.

• 23:05Josh Clark?

  Oh, good.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Such that he can, can speak and, um, you know, I mean, I think he's doing as well as he can be for, you know, such a, I think it was a pretty massive stroke, but the interview I saw was like, he had a sense of humor and was engaged and people really, really loved hearing from him again.

• 23:22Josh Clark?

  That's wonderful. I'm glad I asked then.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. I, I just saw that kind of recently too. That's funny. You must be in my, uh, algorithm.

• 23:29Josh Clark?

  I'm all up in there.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  Uh, should we take a break or should we go through this last bit?

• 23:35Josh Clark?

  We should go through the last bit.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Okay, so here's something that's probably not surprising. Is it dispositional and attributional optimism are really correlated to one another? And really no surprise, they're also, I was about to say comorbid, but that always sounds bad, but correlated to high self-esteem, positive affect, feeling like you're in control of your life and your outcomes, and obviously negatively correlated with feeling depressed, or stressed, or alienated, or having anxiety, or hopelessness.

• 24:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and as far as big five personality traits goes, it's most closely related to emotional stability optimism is.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:17Josh Clark?

  So essentially, if you put all that together, that's the kid from your high school that you hated because everybody loved him and he was in a great mood all the time and he loved you.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was kind of me. Oh, no.

• 24:27Josh Clark?

  Oh, really?

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, sort of.

• 24:28Josh Clark?

  Mine was Scott Galvin or Tony Appy.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Ah, man, Tony Appy, that guy.

• 24:33Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. So I say we take a break.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Okay, we'll take a break. We're going to think about our lives and where this podcast is headed, and I'm feeling pretty good about it, optimistic. We'll be right back.

• 24:59Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability, and it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 25:22Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 26:00Speaker 05

  This stress check, AKA friendly reminder that your hobbies matter, is brought to you by State Farm, because you deserve to lose yourself in the stuff that brings you joy. Here's mine: painting my tabletop battle miniatures. Yeah, seriously. After a long day, I grab a brush, pop in some music, and just get into it. And there's no wrong way to do it. It helps me clear my head, slow down, and just breathe. But it works. Big stress, mini warriors, total reset. No pressure, just paint, creativity, and a little reminder of what makes me happy. Some people bake, some people garden. Me, I paint warriors with interesting tech. And guess what? It works. You don't have to be good at your hobby, you just have to enjoy it.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  So carve out that time, tune out the noise, and do something that's just for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 26:53Speaker 06

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by rising star Sienna Spiral. What is so fascinating to you about impermanence?

• 27:15Speaker 07

  Everything about us, everything we do, is temporary. And I just got terrified of that, you know, what we do with our time and how I feel like the way the world is today and how fast-paced it is and how much we don't even acknowledge anything around us. How I felt temporary to the people around me and how that made me scared and how much I wanted to last and make an impact on people and, I guess, to change the way I looked at things and to change myself and to change how I guess I approached everything in my life. It's important that things are impermanent because nothing would feel special. And enjoying, you know, learning to love with knowing it's not gonna last.

• 27:49Speaker 06

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  All right, so the thing that was on my mind, and I'm glad she included this bit, Livia did, is like, you know, is this stuff nature or nurture? Like, are we kind of born this way, or are we made this way? And no surprise, it's a bit of both. I think generally speaking, they've come to a consensus that about 25, and anytime you hear percentages like this, it's sort of, take it with a grain of salt.

• 28:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  About 25% genetic, and the rest is a mix of, like, your childhood and the environment that you were raised in, obviously, and then stuff that happened to you since then.

• 28:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and a lot of it's pretty intuitional, right?

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, intuitive?

• 28:55Josh Clark?

  Sure. Yes, that's why I was like, that doesn't sound right.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:59Josh Clark?

  Like, if you are a developmental psychologist, you would say, well, your early life experiences and being raised in a family that neglected you, or abused you, or criticized you constantly, you're going to develop negative patterns of thinking, and they're going to frame the way that you look at the world, of course.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:16Josh Clark?

  So, I mean, it makes sense, it jibes. It's not one of these things, it's like, this one subgroup in psychology is working on optimism and pessimism, and having to try to do all these mental gymnastics to reverse

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:28Josh Clark?

  shoehorn it into other stuff.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:30Josh Clark?

  It just fits with other concepts. So it's very clear that there are, there's something to optimism and pessimism. They do exist as a thing, psychologically speaking, and stuff like that just backs it up.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. There was a study this year, actually, pretty robust, where they had 200,000 adults, and this one's good because it was spread out over 22 different countries. And we'll talk about a little bit of the bias of just studying sort of Western countries with optimism and stuff. But they compare their levels of optimism with how they, you know, remember their childhood. And across all the geographies, and again, no surprise, people who had positive relationships in their family, with their parents and siblings, they had better financial status, better health outcomes, and obviously were more optimistic. Interestingly, if you had frequent religious attendance when you were a kid... They associate that with optimism, but most strongly in more secular countries, which I thought was pretty fascinating.

• 30:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was trying to figure that out. And the best I could come up with is that they they just they stood out more because they were fewer and farther between. I'm not sure.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  I don't know. Or maybe in more religious countries, you're just sort of more expected to be dragged to church. And it wasn't like a conscious choice you made to go. I don't know.

• 30:45Josh Clark?

  That's a better interpretation.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:47Josh Clark?

  And also, like I was saying, divorce, abuse, feeling like an outsider in your family, all associated with lower optimism.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:55Josh Clark?

  And they did say like, okay, there is possibly something we should mention here. It's possible that these people who are recalling their childhood are the optimists are recalling their childhood in more favorable terms and the pessimists are recalling them in less favorable terms. And there has to be like a word for when the thing you're studying acts as a confounding factor in the study of itself.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:21Josh Clark?

  Couldn't find it to save the life of me. So if you're a researcher out there and you know what that is, tell me, because I've been dying. But that's essentially what they were saying. They still said, no, this study still stands. But they at least did acknowledge that it's possible it was the thing being studied optimism was influencing the study itself.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, there's got to be a certain bias, like a blank bias, you know?

• 31:42Josh Clark?

  Blank bias, good enough.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  If you're wondering about the brain itself, like just your physical brain, your noodle, as they say, they have found differences, obviously, in optimist and pessimist brains and how they're built, like your gray matter volume, but also how they activate. And there was a study, again, from this year in 2025, where, and I thought this is pretty interesting, where optimists share patterns, like they're the wonder machine lights up in kind of the same way when optimists imagine future events. Whereas when pessimists imagine future events, they may all be imagining something negative, but it's all individual to that person and how the MRI machine lights up.

• 32:25Josh Clark?

  I think this is maybe the most interesting thing that has been turned up about this so far.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is. It's just like group think versus like, no, I have a personal negative outlook that's only mine.

• 32:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, I saw somebody point out like, maybe this is why some people click with other people, like they share a literal brain pattern in the way that they think about the future and outlook on life. Whereas, you know, people who are like, have lower optimism or higher pessimism are tend to think be thought of as like, Moby alienated off by themselves. So they can't even connect with one another because they have varying brain patterns. It's not like optimists all have one brain pattern and pessimists all have one brain pattern. Optimists are the only ones that share the brain pattern. I find that super fascinating.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  No, totally. And it also sort of lends itself to like, if you're pessimistic, you may have a harder time finding a community because it's it's your own and not one that you share.

• 33:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  As you know, we're talking about health outcomes. If you read, you know, especially like when you were saying like the earlier 2000s, when it was all this happiness stuff, like it makes it seem like optimism is basically just the key to life across every single factor, from health to your finances, everything, your focus and your decision making and your motivations. And a lot of that is true to a certain degree. It's not a magic pill. But there's no doubt that optimism is linked to better, like literal health outcomes, better heart health, lower inflammation, better immune responses, sleeping better, overall mortality rates. One suggestion is like, yeah, because you know, you're not as stressed

• 34:09Speaker 03

  out and stress is the cause of a lot of that stuff. So that just sort of makes sense.

• 34:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you have less inflammation, which is a big one. I mean, that could explain it right there as far as health outcomes. But also they're like, well, hold on. I mean, like optimists, one of the things that defines optimists is that they are

• 34:26Josh Clark?

  Undeterred in seeking their goals because they generally believe they're going to be successful.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:32Josh Clark?

  Whether all odds are against it or not, doesn't matter. They're, they're just gonna go and do their thing because they think they're, it's gonna be fine. So that would include things like quitting smoking, exercising, eating right, having goals and then just working toward them is almost always aligned with better health and, and like having better health habits too. So that would definitely explain one reason why they are probably healthier.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, there are some big caveats that, uh, Livia was keen to point out and, and a lot of these studies, that sort of, you know, tie between being optimistic and having good health, uh, it, it gets ticked down quite a bit when they look into the details of like someone's, I don't know, bank account. And they're like, oh, well, yeah, this, this person that's got loads of money.

• 35:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're more optimistic. And so, yeah, they're healthier, um, because a lot of that just financial stress and all that stuff goes out the door. And, you know, when you're stressed out about money, like that may lead to like drinking more or starting smoking. And so you really have to sort of caveat that to death, you know?

• 35:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And similarly, these studies are usually just taking a snapshot of what that person's like right then, right? So you score very high on the, uh, an optimistic, um, the, the life orientation test, right? And, um, you also say like, I don't smoke. I eat five servings of vegetables every day.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:02Josh Clark?

  It's not clear from that study, they're correlated, but is it that people who eat better and don't smoke tend to have a more positive outlook?

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:11Josh Clark?

  Or do you not smoke and eat better because you have a positive outlook? There's a whole chicken and the egg thing. I just coined that phrase, but I think it's gonna stick around.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  Then there's something called optimism bias, which I thought was pretty interesting. As a human race, we have an optimism bias. They've studied it to death and they found that just for the general population, the default is about 80% of people are generally optimistic. 10% are generally pessimistic and about 10% can go either way, or maybe are neutral. And there was a psychologist named Neil Weinstein. I think this is in the very early 1980s. Yeah, 1980 was his initial study where he was the first guy to say, "Yeah, I mean, we're pretty much biased toward being optimist." And, you know, one reason may be because it's so shoved down your throat

• 37:06Speaker 03

  that that's the key to everything good in life, you know?

• 37:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, maybe. What Weinstein, I'm going with Weinstein, but I get Weinstein too.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:15Josh Clark?

  I think one thing that his study, it was a landmark study from what I could tell, in 1980, he tested, I think, 200 students and said, "Okay, of these positive things and of these negative things, what is the likelihood it'll happen to you? And what is the likelihood it'll happen to your classmates?" And just across the board, students said that positive things were much more likely to happen to them than to their classmates. Negative things were much more likely to happen to their classmates than to them. And we're talking things like liking your post-graduation job, or your house doubling in value in five years. Or this one, I love this one. Your achievements being written up in the newspaper. Like, all those things were much likelier to happen to the test taker

• 37:58Josh Clark?

  than they were to their fellow students. And that kind of gets to the basis of this optimism bias, that everyone thinks that they're above average in a lot of different ways. Which is, of course, impossible because there have to be people who that isn't true for, or else there wouldn't be an average. We'd all be above average, it's not possible. And so here's where we get to stop talking about optimists as if they're the greatest thing that ever happened. Because one of the big problems with optimism is this bias in making terrible predictions about the outcomes of events.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, there was another study that kind of tied into that is from Talia Sharot, who's a cognitive neuroscientist at the University College of London, and kind of took that experiment and ran with it and said, all right, I'm going to ask you about the likelihood of something good or bad happening in your life. Get that answer. And then they say, well, here's actually the average likelihood of that kind of thing happening. And now let me ask you again. And they found that people changed their answers more in response in the positive way than in the negative way, which I thought was sort of counterintuitive.

• 39:10Josh Clark?

  It is, because you'd think if you said, like, what's your chances of winning the lottery tomorrow? And somebody said 80%, and then the people said, actually, it's 90%. And they'd go, great, well, say 100% for me.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:22Josh Clark?

  That, so that's what people would do. But if the researcher said, actually, it's more like 20%, they'd be like, no, 80% for me. And that's what I was talking about. People tend to think that good things are likely to happen for them.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:35Josh Clark?

  Even in knowing that statistically speaking,

• 39:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:40Josh Clark?

  overall, it's very unlikely to happen to just anybody, but they're not just anybody. This is the optimism bias that's been turned up and reinforced year after year, every year.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:50Josh Clark?

  It's an annual thing.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  Well, and speaking of reinforced, it seems that optimism reinforces optimism. If you, when they've studied this, that positive life events just tend to make you even more optimistic, which makes a lot of sense. But if you have something negative that happens, it doesn't generally, all of a sudden, make you more pessimistic. It's just like, well, that happened.

• 40:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Some other examples are when you expect things to be easy for you.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:18Josh Clark?

  A lot of people do that. I understand that one, too.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  It can be bad.

• 40:20Josh Clark?

  And that you'll be more successful than you would, I mean, again, just statistically speaking.

• 40:27Josh Clark?

  And then also that we spend a lot more time thinking about good things that are coming down the pike than bad ones, which I also can associate with. I mean, it, it just seems unusual for the average person to sit around and be like, wow, I'm probably gonna get a flat tire in the next like year and a half statistically speaking. I should probably think about that for a little while.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 40:52Josh Clark?

  But there is some sort of like, I guess prophylactic influence of that, which is, you might go make sure that your spare tire is doing okay. And that kind of belies this, I'm not sure if I'm using that word correctly, but this, that, that goes to show that the optimist bias can actually be harmful in some ways, because it will prevent you from doing something like going to check your spare tire, because of course you're not gonna get a spare tire, because that wouldn't happen to you.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, Emily and I talk a lot about it, like the Pollyanna thing. That doesn't seem to serve people well, because then you're all of a sudden ignoring, or maybe not ignoring, but at least not, not putting as much weight into the things you do and the decisions you make day to day that like might have a bad outcome. And all of a sudden, you're caught unaware when that bad outcome happens, which is, it's bad enough when you're just an individual, but if you're a corporation or a friggin' government, and you're caught unaware because you thought something was gonna go too well, or you didn't put the budget or the, the time into something that you should have, because you just thought it was a no brainer or something like that.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  That can be really destructive to a business or to a nation.

• 42:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I feel like just believing that artificial intelligence will be great with no downsides that are worth considering is an excellent example of what you're just talking about.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 42:21Josh Clark?

  So you might say, okay, well then if 80% of people are optimistic.

• 42:29Josh Clark?

  That kind of suggests that this is like maybe humanity's default setting and that pessimism is like maybe a malfunction even.

• 42:39Josh Clark?

  The, the thing about that is that it doesn't really make sense that it would be evolutionarily favorable for us to be optimistic because of this optimism bias that can get us into trouble. But you can look at it a certain way and say like, actually, it does make a lot of sense because if we didn't have an optimistic bias, we might not go try new things. We might not make it out of the cave and learn to make fire ourselves. Or kind of put differently, if you have a problem that's life or death and you throw a bunch of people at it and all of them are kind of pre-tuned to expect their attempt at, at being successful to work, the ones who die trying don't get to reproduce.

• 43:24Josh Clark?

  The ones that succeed do get to live to reproduce. And not only do they get to live to reproduce and pass on that, that optimism bias, it's reinforced because they were successful and they think all the more now, I can successfully predict my future and I'll be successful in that future.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I mentioned the caveat about the Western societies being the most studied. A lot of these are definitely, you know, slanted toward, you know, the American way of life or the Western way of life and, and thought. They're really not super sure about sort of worldwide. There is some evidence that, like in Japan, that like they might not anticipate positive outcomes as much for their own selves like we do here in the United States. But they also make the point like, well, we're also, you know, all of these things are people's self-reporting. So in places like the United States or Australia, they may just be more likely to say out loud

• 44:23Speaker 03

  that they're optimistic, whereas in another country, they may feel that way, but just, you know, no whammies kind of style, or maybe they just are not as outwardly optimistic, but they really feel it. They just don't want to say it.

• 44:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's not cool to be optimistic in those countries.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:39Josh Clark?

  You want to take a break and then come back and talk about some variations on this theme?

• 44:43Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 45:00Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 45:22Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  This live check-in is brought to you by State Farm. Porque el bienestar de tu familia también merece protección. Okay, real talk. I'm about to become a dad again. And wow, it hits different the second time. Hi, I'm Wilmer Valderrama and I've done, you know, I've done the red carpets, the long days on set and all that, but nothing prepares you for that moment when you're building a crib and you realize you're building a future. Familia is everything to me. The laughs, the chaos, the unconditional love, but also the pressure, la responsabilidad. If you're stepping into something big right now, starting a family, getting engaged, moving cities, you're not alone. Take one step at a time. Why breathe?

• 46:43Speaker 03

  Be present and lean into the people that got your back. Y disfruta. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 46:51Speaker 06

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by rising star Sienna Spiro. What is so fascinating to you about impermanence?

• 47:13Speaker 07

  Everything about us, everything we do is temporary. And I just got terrified of that. You know, what we do with our time and how I feel like the way the world is today and how fast paced it is and how much we don't even acknowledge anything around us. How I felt temporary to the people around me and how that made me scared and how much I wanted to last and make an impact on people. And I guess to change the way I looked at things and to change myself and to change how I guess I approached everything in my life. It's important that things are impermanent because nothing would feel special. And enjoying, you know, learning to love with knowing it's not going to last.

• 47:47Speaker 06

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 48:14Josh Clark?

  Okay, Chuck, we said we were going to talk about some variations. And I think one thing we should point out is that optimism itself is almost a variation on a theme. When people say like, like somebody's just happy all the time, they're just going through life, they have like the best attitude. That's actually not optimism. Optimism is either, like we said, you are expecting good things to happen down the pike, or you assume that you can overcome obstacles. You don't blame other people for your issues. Like, that's optimism. Well, the other thing that I just mentioned is positive affect, which is more enjoying the present, and optimism is thinking about the future, essentially.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good thing to point out for sure.

• 48:58Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Some of these variations that you mentioned, we were going to talk about. I thought all these were pretty interesting. One is called depressive realism. And I think they all had their place. Depressive realism is this idea that if you're, you know, maybe a little depressed or moderately depressed, then you're actually a realist and you have a way more accurate view of the real world around you. In other words, you're not that Pollyanna. You're a realist. And this came from a study in the 1970s by psychologist Lauren Aloy and Lynn Yvonne Abramson, where it's kind of a funky study, but they had participants push a button and then judged how effective that might be for causing a light to go on.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Like, I'm gonna press this button, but I don't think it's gonna do anything.

• 49:45Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  Or, man, this room's gonna light up when I press this button.

• 49:49Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. And they said that people with depression tended to more accurately predict whether that button was gonna turn the light on or not, right?

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  And so they extrapolated that to say like, well, you know, that means that people with depression or depressive symptoms are, they have just a greater handle on the reality of reality, basically. They're less likely to make wild predictions about their success. And so they understand reality better. And this was a landmark study that people just immediately put into the pop psychology grind. Because it's just so contrarian. It's delicious.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:27Josh Clark?

  And it's also one of those landmark studies that people have loved to kind of try to take shots at. And apparently, it's not very well replicated. So I don't know its status right now, but it seems like it's, it hasn't been debunked. And it's not unfounded as far as the field of psychology is concerned, but it doesn't seem like it's as golden as it once was.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  To like a dented landmark?

• 50:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think that's a great one. Like that ball of foil.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  That's right. There's another variation called defensive pessimism. I like this one. I mean, this isn't really me, but I think there's a lot of validity here. And in that, if you have lower expectations and you're sort of planning for the worst, that's almost the same as being optimistic in a way as far as it helping you in life. Because it can really help manage your anxiety. It can make you feel like you have some sense of control. And you're not, you know, Like during COVID, they found that if you were a defensive pessimist, then that correlated with taking more precautions and being safer and i.e. I guess being healthier.

• 51:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, if you ever put two words together to describe me, it's defensive pessimist.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:39Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  I could see that.

• 51:40Josh Clark?

  And I think there's no greater description than this, but defensive pessimists don't focus as much on pursuing happiness. They focus more on avoiding regret.

• 51:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:49Josh Clark?

  Which is, I mean, they can still have the same outcome, but it's, it's what you're chasing is different. You're avoiding a negative outcome rather than pursuing a positive outcome, but the, the outcome's still the same. You succeeded.

• 52:01Speaker 03

  Because you're pursuing something.

• 52:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you're actually, you're, it's based on the idea that you can change your fate.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:08Josh Clark?

  Like you can take actions to affect this outcome and make it as, as close to the outcome you want as possible. That's the same thing as optimism. It's just coming at it a different way.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I really like that idea because, I mean, it's not me, but I love it for you because it's not like, well, this is just going to happen to me no matter what. It's like, boy, I have a bad feeling that this is going to happen to me unless I take these steps.

• 52:32Josh Clark?

  Right. The only downside of it is like you won't let yourself think about the future being good because you'll jinx it essentially.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Jinxing is a whole other, uh, whole other part of this thing.

• 52:46Josh Clark?

  What, so the, what you just described though, is, is what I think is the worst one fatalistic pessimism, which is,

• 52:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:52Josh Clark?

  everything's wrong and I can't do anything to change it. That is a sad, sad disposition that I like to think that is not set in stone. It's just because of life circumstances or it's a particular low point in your life. I don't know, but I don't like to think that anyone out there is at their base of fatalistic pessimists. That's just sad.

• 53:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed. Um, on the flip side of that coin, you have toxic positivity. I mean, we almost don't even need to say anything else because I think everyone knows what that is. It can lead to bad things because like, that's sort of the Pollyanna thing I was talking about. You're ignoring anything negative to like, basically you're delusional about that. And so you're not gonna attempt to approve things because you're just like, no, it's all gonna work out. It's gonna be great.

• 53:40Josh Clark?

  One of the ways that this pops up, I think, for people and they don't really recognize that that's what they're doing is when somebody shares their feelings or confides in you that they're afraid of something or anxious about something. And you just say, oh, it's all gonna work out. You're being toxically positive right then. You're actually dismissing their fears. And you're probably doing it because you're uncomfortable right then. You don't know what else to say. So you're just going on, well, I can't go wrong by being positive. You actually can, and that's toxic positivity.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's, I mean, true in all relationships, supporting a spouse or a friend. But also a lot with parenting, like, that's not a great road to go down with a kid because you're teaching them the wrong things. I feel like you should be saying like, well, hey, let's think about this. And maybe if you take these steps, you can help affect the outcome rather than like, it's gonna be fine. You're gonna be great.

• 54:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Because you're not always gonna be great.

• 54:32Josh Clark?

  No, that is a good thing to teach a kid, for sure.

• 54:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:37Josh Clark?

  There's also tragic optimism. It was coined by a guy named Viktor Frankl, who is a psychologist, or sorry, psychiatrist, who actually did, he was interned in a Nazi concentration camp and lost essentially everyone he knew. And he wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning from that. And it's like a seminal book in the search for the meaning of life. But he coined tragic optimism to basically say, this is the mindset where you are aware that in life you're gonna suffer pain, guilt, loss, and that you can accept that that's true and still seek the most positive outcomes you can get.

• 55:15Speaker 03

  I like that one, too.

• 55:16Josh Clark?

  Try to be happy even knowing that.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I like that.

• 55:20Josh Clark?

  And then what's the last one, Chuck?

• 55:22Speaker 03

  Cultural pessimism.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna editorialize here. That's basically just like the belief that the society was better at a different time. You know, decades ago, everything was great in this country and everything is just going straight down the toilet today.

• 55:38Josh Clark?

  It's called getting old.

• 55:43Speaker 03

  It's interesting in that you have a tendency, in this case, toward optimism bias about your own life, while also, at the same time, being pessimistic about society as a whole, which I think is super fascinating.

• 55:54Josh Clark?

  It is, for sure, especially when you talk about like, my economic outlook is sunny, but not for the country.

• 56:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:01Josh Clark?

  I've also seen it called declineism, too.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  Oh, eesh.

• 56:05Josh Clark?

  So let's say you're like, alright, nuts to all this pessimistic outlook that I've got, I want to be an optimist, I'm even willing to try to navigate optimistic bias, that's how bad I want to be optimistic. There's actually some stuff that they figured out that you can do to essentially shift your outlook some. I don't think anyone's saying like, this is going to rewire your genetic code or anything like that, but there are some proven interventions you can take to help that along. I think probably it's based on your willingness to want to change, too.

• 56:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think intervention is a good word, because it's like, hey, this is happening, let me use this specific technique to stop it in its tracks. In the first case is the ABC technique. Our old buddy Martin Seligman came up with this one. It's used a lot in CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. And the A is the antecedent or adversity, so you encounter something difficult, Livia used a great example of like, you flunk a test, maybe. Then you have your belief and behavior, which in this case might be like, I just, I can't pass this test, I can't understand this stuff, I'm too dumb. And then the consequence is the C, which is, because you have that fatalistic attitude, I'm just too dumb to pass this test, you don't study and you fall further behind.

• 57:26Speaker 03

  And the key here, according to Seligman, is you gotta get in there between the difficult situation, the thing that happens, and the B thing, between the A and B, and change the attribution. So in other words... Don't go to like, oh, I'm too dumb to do this. Go to like, no, that happened because I've been really stressed out. I didn't put the time in that I needed to to study. I was really, had my priorities, priorities out of whack. I didn't sleep well that week. And that's an immediate intervention where you're putting the attribution on something that was temporary that happened and not this is how I am.

• 58:05Josh Clark?

  Right, and that you can also change too.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 58:08Josh Clark?

  And then conversely too, you can also say like, I got a good grade. It wasn't just because the, you know, I was lucky. You tell yourself, I got a good grade because I worked really hard. I got good sleep this week and I paid attention. I found this interesting. You can do the same thing too, the opposite too, to achieve the same goal. I think you probably have to do both, to tell you the truth.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then this is also a good thing to remember when you're parenting because when your kids are in school and they maybe get a bad grade. The first question I think you should say is, well, why do you think you got a bad grade? And see what they say and then just kind of go from there.

• 58:45Josh Clark?

  Right, and then if they get a really good grade, you say, well, why didn't you get a hundred?

• 58:49Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 58:51Josh Clark?

  So there's another one that's even better than the ABC technique. It's called the best possible self or BPS intervention. And apparently, everybody loves this one. There's a way of dealing with trauma that they used to have. It's called trauma writing, where you would write out essentially like the worst stuff that happened to you and it would make you feel better having gotten it out on paper. It would also be pretty traumatic to do, right?

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:16Josh Clark?

  The whole basis of that trauma. Well, Laura King, back in 2001, said, let's try something different. Let's write out this, this sketch of yourself down the road in the future where you've achieved everything you wanted to achieve. It was through hard work. Write that version out. And it's less traumatizing, but it also has the same effect. Like it improves your sense of well-being and apparently increases your optimistic outlook on things.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, it's the idea of that sort of hippie dippy thing where, you know, close your eyes and envision your future where you were strong and, and you're not doing the things that you're doing now that are holding you back. And it sounds kind of corny, but I think when you write it down, there's something to that, just the same as trauma writing. It's different than just sort of mentally visualizing good things happening.

• 1:00:02Josh Clark?

  Way different. There's something about writing that's definitely a step plus, you know?

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Josh Clark?

  Um, and then, so just real quick, there are some benefits to pessimism, too. It's not just, you know, being optimistic. Like, if you are pessimistic, there's some upsides to it, but also even if you're optimistic, there's maybe a little pessimism you should adopt, too. Like, if you want to enact social change, that usually doesn't happen through optimistic leaders. It happens through people who are skeptical and are not falling for the false advertising or, uh, false promises, essentially, right? Like, you can't really be optimistic and get good social change, I think.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 1:00:41Josh Clark?

  And then also, uh, if you are a group that wants to spur social change, it's probably because you're unhappy with your current situation. And then lastly, this one's always stood out to me. If everyone's looking on the positive side of things, then the people who are doing negative stuff are much likelier to get away with it.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:01:01Josh Clark?

  So I feel like if you have the ability to shift between pessimism and optimism as the situation calls for it, that's probably ideal.

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. Or, you know, if you're a defensive pessimist, uh, it's not about aiming low, it's about not expecting too high. And then if you have, and it sounds bad to have, like, you should have low expectations. It's, it's more like realistic expectations, uh, and then you outperform those. Like, that's gotta feel great to a pessimist.

• 1:01:29Josh Clark?

  For sure. It's like, um, uh, planning for the worst but hoping for the best.

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, that old t-shirt. Isn't there a cat hanging from a tree or something?

• 1:01:37Josh Clark?

  I think that's hanging there, baby.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:01:40Josh Clark?

  Uh, you got anything else?

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  I got nothing else. That was, uh, that was a good one. I enjoyed it.

• 1:01:45Josh Clark?

  Agreed. Well, Chuck enjoyed this one, which means he automatically unlocked listener mail.

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  You know what? I, I don't have a great listener mail prepped for today. So let's just mention once again that we are going on tour again next year. We are super excited. Uh, we got shows lined up in January, uh, out west-ish, uh, in the Midwest in April, and then we're finally going all across Canada, you guys. We're, we're reaching out with an olive, olive branch. Such weird times between our countries and saying, hey,

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  don't boycott us. We want to come visit you. We're going to Montreal. We're going to places we've never been before. And tickets are on sale now and we'd love to see everybody.

• 1:02:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Starting out, we're going to be in Denver and then Seattle and then San Francisco on January 27th, 28th and 29th.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Josh Clark?

  And for those tickets and all tickets as they come on sale, you can just go to stuffyoushouldknow.com, click on the tour button and it will take you where you need to go.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  That's right. Can't wait to see everybody. A.

• 1:02:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah. A. And if you want to get in touch with us in the meantime and send us an email, we would love that. You can send it off to [email protected].

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 1:03:13Josh Clark?

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• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.