It’s a well-known fact that optimism has a significant positive impact on our mental health. This is part of why I tried for years to foster a positive attitude. To look on the bright side. To see the best in every situation.

Being a naturally negative person, this optimistic attitude was extremely difficult for me to hold for even a few moments, let alone maintain. Oddly, I also found that when I was able to employ optimistic thinking strategies, I felt worse psychologically, not better. Part of me wondered if I was some sort of anti-optimist. So negative that positivity was somehow my kryptonite. A lost cause, doomed to be forever hopeless.

Defensive Pessimism

If you find yourself in the same situation as me, seemingly allergic to optimism, rest assured you are not a hopeless case. The reality is that optimism simply doesn’t work for everybody. Some of us actively find hope in pessimism. We manage our anxieties and counter our depression through negative attitudes. Take away our negative outlooks, and we end up drowning in doubt and fear.

I know this sounds contradictory, but there is even a name for this concept: defensive pessimism. This concept was identified back in the mid-1980s by Nancy Cantor and her students. Through research and testing, they found that some people can wield pessimism in such a way that it has many of the same effects as optimism.

When you look closely at optimists and pessimists as defined by most researchers, the core difference between these groups is how they cope with problems. Many of the pessimists that show up in research papers simply wrap their dark views and troubled expectations around them, like a burial shroud. They see the darkness in life and give up.

But pessimism can also be used as a tool. Instead of using it as a burial shroud, some of us choose to turn it into a sail. We use our pessimism to navigate the oceans of difficulty in which we are trapped. Like all pessimists we set low expectations, we catastrophize, we focus on the negative. But we do all of this to manage our anxieties, cope with horrible situations, and develop strategies for addressing them.

Defensive Pessimism Strategies

What types of strategies do defensive pessimists use? The literature hasn’t fully explored the answer to that question just yet. Luckily, though, being a frequent user of defensive pessimism, I am pretty familiar with a few of these strategies.

Setting the Bar Low

Research and common sense suggest that typically we are happier when things exceed our expectations. We expect that we will do dismally in our workplace evaluation. But then we are told that we getting a raise because of our outstanding performance. We did better than we ever expected, and as a result, we feel great about ourselves.

This is part of why setting the bar low is a commonly used defensive pessimism strategy. It is especially useful for perfectionists, who tend toward black-and-white, all-or-nothing, success-or-failure type thinking.

The optimists would like us to shoot for the stars. While this seems inspiring, if you are a perfectionist like me, the idea is quite crippling. If I expected to get an A on a test, and I got a B+, I had failed. With my rigid and dichotomous thinking, there was either failure or success and no in-between options.

Ideally, we will do the work necessary to alter the perfectionist attitudes or rigid thinking that can be psychologically damaging to us. But that work can take years. In the meantime, you need a way to feel successful and worthwhile. Setting the bar low can help you gain those feelings of success, worth, and accomplishment. As an added bonus, as you continue to succeed, your confidence grows and you become a generally healthier person psychologically speaking.

Removing the Bar

Another defensive pessimist strategy is not having a bar at all. This idea is well summed up in a quote from Dodgeball: “I found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, then you are never disappointed.” While it is unhealthy to have no goals in all areas of life, giving up goals or removing expectations from certain situations can be extremely beneficial.

Research, clinicians, and everyday folk have found mindfulness provides a multitude of benefits. Two of the key components of mindfulness practices are acceptance and non-judgment. You remove your expectations from the situation and simply accept things as they are. This is simply a positive spin on what Vince Vaughn’s character in Dodgeball said.

Is it healthy to never have any goals? No, of course not. But in some situations, it can be extremely beneficial to let go of expectations and just ride the wave. In fact, it has been shown that choosing acceptance is actually a more positive choice when the situation is unchangeable or out of your control. Defensive pessimists know that sometimes it’s best to just throw the bar away.

Comparative Wellness

Comparative wellness is a term I came up with to describe one of the most commonly used and societally accepted defensive pessimism strategies. It is when you look at others around you whose lives are in chaos and you say to yourself, “Well, at least I’m not that bad off.”

Many of us would likely be unwilling to admit to these sentiments, but the media we choose to consume would argue that comparative wellness is alive and kicking for many of us. The Jerry Springer Show is a prime example of this. We watch the chaos and feel better about our lives.

Even if you don’t partake in this type of “low-brow” entertainment, many people gain some form of comparative wellness from soap operas, horror books or movies, or even operas. This is obviously not the only reason people consume these types of media or not a reason at all for some people. But many of us, on some level, do watch these shows or read these books and feel just a little bit better about our life.

Laugh in the Face of Darkness

TikTok videos and journal articles will both reveal that many trauma survivors deal with their trauma in part with humor. Humor is employed not just by trauma survivors, but by many people who work with or around life-and-death situations. When people come to face with the worst humanity has to offer, many of them choose to laugh instead of cry.

For people who have not had to tango with the dark side, this humor may seem quite dark or even sickening. This type of humor is a quintessential defensive pessimist strategy. It acknowledges and accepts the darkness fully, and then literally laughs in the face of it.

Dark humor allows people to vent their feelings, deepen social ties among those who have shared experiences, and distance themselves from the situation. At its core, humor provides a way for people to keep moving forward when surrounded by or exposed to the depths of evil. As Garrick wrote in her article The Humor of Trauma Survivors: “Humor does not minimize the significance of a terrible event, but it does allow the survivor to see how they can cope and thrive in their environment.”

Catastrophization

Catastrophizing is actually one of the few defensive pessimism strategies that are discussed in the literature. People using this strategy play through scenarios in their heads, blowing things out of proportion, and looking for the worst possible outcome.

Many would argue that this is a horrible strategy for dealing with stress and anxiety. There is a large amount of research out there that suggests that catastrophizing leads to greater distress, anxiety, depression, and pain. Common sense would suggest that ruminating on all the bad things would increase your fear, reduce your hope and motivation, and possibly even create self-fulfilling prophecies that would birth these worries into reality.

Remember, though, that defensive pessimism is all about using the darkness to find a way forward. While I cannot speak for others that use this strategy, I find catastrophizing extremely beneficial for three main reasons.

One) It can bring some humor to the situation. If you doubt that catastrophization can be humorous, I encourage you to listen to our Patreon Unlocked Unnecessarily Disastrous episode Trying on Clothing. Ivy and I regularly release Unnecessarily Disastrous episodes on Patreon because blowing a situation horribly out of proportion can be quite hilarious.

Two) If your reality testing is intact, once you figure out the worst-case scenario, you can also identify that whatever happens is likely going to be better than that. Let’s say you hear a slight noise in your car. Through catastrophization you identify a horrible scenario wherein your car violently explodes while passing a propane business, igniting their tank, skyrocketing into the ether, and then crashing down onto a nearby school that is neighbors with a puppy sanctuary. The likelihood of this occurring is so far-fetched that you can say to yourself, “well, at least it won’t be that bad.”

Three) It builds confidence. I know a lot of people argue that catastrophization strips a person of confidence. But, if like me you have been through a lot of shit in your life, looking realistically at the worst-case scenario can help you feel secure in knowing you can handle it.

Take that noise in your car, for example. Propane tanks and puppy sanctuaries aside, the worst-case scenario is that your car is beyond repair, you can’t make it to work, and you end up homeless. Is this a very frightening possibility? Yes, of course, it is. But I’ve been without a vehicle, job, or housing before. And I made it through. I did what I had to do to get back on my feet. Realizing this, I also realize that whatever this noise is, whatever consequences it leads to, I have the ability to keep moving forward despite it.

The Power of Pessimism

Many would have us believe that only positive, Pollyanna strategies will truly help us be psychologically healthy or meet our goals. But this isn’t true. The strategies developed through negative attitudes and outlooks are truly effective. In fact, if you interfere with our negativity, if you force us to look on the bright side, we will actually do worse. We have learned how to fight darkness with darkness. And if you take away our weapon of choice, we are left defenseless against the onslaught of anxiety, depression, fear, and negativity that surrounds us.

It's important to remember, though, that there is a fine line between defensive pessimism and self-sabotaging pessimism. On the surface, defensive pessimists share a lot in common with people who self-sabotage. We hold many of the same views, believe in the same futures, and perceive things just as negatively.

The difference is that we use our views, beliefs, and perceptions to do something about the negativity that surrounds us. We don’t avoid the struggles or refuse to cope. We see the darkness and then we do something about it. We are committed to surviving, to moving forward, to growing. Common pessimists use the tools that anxiety, depression, and trauma provided them to build coffins for themselves. Defensive pessimists use these tools to build a life worth living.

Defensive Pessimism: The Positive Impact of a Negative Outlook