Author Question: Optimism can be seen as a type of explanatory style. What is meant by this? What will be an ideal ... (Read 52 times)

fox · **on:** Jun 22, 2018

Optimism can be seen as a type of explanatory style. What is meant by this?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What is dispositional optimism?

What will be an ideal response?

coyin · **Reply #1 on:** Jun 22, 2018

Answer to Question 1

What we refer to as optimism can alternatively be seen as a type of explanatory style or way in which people make causal inferences about why things happen to them. Optimists tend to see bad events as temporary, specific to the situation, and caused by external factors (e.g. We can chalk this one up to bad luck in this situation, but most of the time things go well.), whereas pessimists show the opposite pattern of seeing bad events as more enduring (e.g., This problem is never going to go away), global (e.g., This always seems to happen to me.), and caused by internal factors (e.g., If I were smarter this wouldn't have happened to me.

Answer to Question 2

As defined by leading experts in the area, Charles Carver, Michael Scheier, and their associates, optimists are people who expect good things to happen; pessimists are people who expect bad things to happen. Dispositional optimism is an enduring tendency to have global expectations of positive outcomes.