Research suggests pessimists are at greater risk of struggling with anxiety
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Are you a glass half empty person? That’s something to worry about… Research suggests pessimists are at higher risk of battling anxiety
- The researchers looked at 625 students, who were asked to predict expected grades.
- Many students had ‘optimism bias’ by raising expectations about past performance
- Experts suspect that pessimism is a strategy used to avoid being disappointed.
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This is bad news for the Eeyores of this world who have a glass half empty approach to life.
Pessimists are at higher risk of battling anxiety, a study suggests.
The researchers looked at 625 students, who were asked to predict the grades they expected to get on a series of four tests.
Many students had an “optimism bias,” meaning they raised their expectations of future test scores based on how they had previously performed.
(File Image) Pessimists are at higher risk of battling anxiety, study suggests
(File image) Researchers looked at 625 students, who were asked to predict the grades they expected to get on a set of four tests.
But pessimistic people expected the worst, so they didn’t properly update their future ratings predictions when they did better than expected.
These pessimists later showed greater signs of anxiety, the researchers found, based on a questionnaire they filled out up to three years later.
Experts suspect that pessimism is a strategy people adopt because they don’t want to be let down by unpredictable events.
That’s also a sign of anxiety, so the two may be strongly linked.
Dr. Aaron Heller, who led the study from the University of Miami Department of Psychology, said: “Our results suggest that people who are pessimistic learn differently from surprises in their lives.”
(File Image) Pessimistic people expected the worst, so they failed to properly update their future ratings predictions when they did better than expected
“Not only are they less optimistic, but even when small, surprising things happen to them, they don’t change their outlook as much as people who aren’t pessimists, and this can put them at higher risk of anxiety symptoms.”
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, asked people to predict their results on four difficult chemistry tests.
Pessimists generally failed to raise their predictions for themselves when they did slightly better than expected.
The anxiety test, six months to three years later, asked questions such as whether people felt anxious and nervous or felt they were worrying too much.
The researchers used the test results to assess pessimism, as previous studies have only looked at gaming tasks, which are less related to real life.