![]() ![]() In the workplace the ASQ has been shown to be useful as a recruitment tool, enabling people with already high levels of optimism to be selected for jobs such as sales positions that require a quick bounce-back emotionally after a failed pitch (Schulman, 1999). Energization – celebrate the successful disputation of negative beliefs and that you have been able to move forward.īoth of these tools have been used in a wide range of contexts.Provide counter-evidence for any negative beliefs you are holding in your mind. Disputation – reflect on how you might react differently to what is going on.Consequence – how are you reacting emotionally and physically?.Belief – what are you thinking about the experience?. ![]() Adversity – what is the actual situation that is happening to you?.The structure follows an easy-to-remember acronym, ABCDE: The person learns how to talk themselves through a situation in which they feel they are becoming pessimistic. If a person’s ASQ reading is towards the pessimistic end of the spectrum, they can choose the second tool to help develop optimism. There is evidence that the ASQ is a predictor of depression, physical health, and achievement in various domains (Maruta et al, 2000 Sweeney, Anderson and Bailey, 1986). The ASQ provides a baseline measure of optimism. People are asked to write down the one major cause of each event and then rate the cause along a seven-point continuum for each of the three causal dimensions, permanence, pervasiveness and personalization. The ASQ presents 12 hypothetical events, half good and half bad. The first is the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and its derivatives. To support the practical application of the theory, Seligman and colleagues developed two specific tools. They might say, therefore, in contrast to the pessimist, ‘I always try to look on the positive side after a setback and to the good things I know the future holds for me!’ Application of Learned Optimism On the other hand, a person with an optimistic explanatory style will interpret negative events as passing blips, not spoiling the wider enjoyment of life and probably caused by some temporary problem that will be rectified. They might say, for example, ‘If anything can go wrong it will always go wrong with me!’ People who have a pessimistic explanatory style will interpret negative events as permanent, personal and pervasive. Their conclusion is that a shift to one or the other hinges on an individual’s explanatory style. The work of Seligman and his colleagues progressed to try to establish why different people reacted with either pessimism or optimism when the circumstances ostensibly seemed to be the same. Later experiments involving humans found that those people who felt they had a degree of control over their circumstances were less prone to helplessness even when they chose not to exercise that control (Hiroto and Seligman, 1975). Some did not, however, and managed to find a way out of their circumstances. In his studies on helplessness in the 1960s Seligman and his colleagues found that a high percentage of the dogs they were using in behavioural research learned how to become helpless in the face of unpleasant conditions. The two constructs are closely related, one almost mirroring the other. To become familiar with the principles underpinning learned optimism, Seligman encourages people to first understand learned helplessness. Helplessness is a state that is learned rather than an unchangeable aspect of human nature or personality. It is the mindset at the core of pessimism. This, he says, is the state of mind where you believe that nothing you do can affect what actually happens to you. The theory developed out of Seligman’s long-standing research interest in human helplessness. Professor Martin Seligman, a prominent psychologist and one of the founders of the positive psychology movement, first offered this theory in his book Learned Optimism (Seligman, 1990). To do this they need to encourage a habit of challenging any negative or pessimistic thought that enters the mind.Īs people practise this routine, over time they will learn how to become increasingly optimistic in response to circumstances. Learned optimism is the idea that people can develop the state of being optimistic just as they can develop any other talent, if they want to.
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