Explain Seligman’s concept of ‘positive explanatory style’. Taking the domains of professional sport and student examination performance, briefly outline your views on the strengths and limitations of the concept.

Question 1

1st paragraph

Answer 1

• “Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure… Optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence” - Seligman (1990)
• Definition of optimism and pessimism
• Interesting as may be key to success
• Curing negatives doesn’t produce positives
• Development of positive psychology

Question 2

2nd paragraph

Answer 2

• Seligman (1967) theory of learned helplessness, dogs inescapable shock, escapable shock no shock
• Can be extrapolated to humans Seligman (1972)
• Hiroto (1971) - humans noise learned helplessness
• Helpless person more likely to be pessimistic
• Differences between optimist and pessimist - permanence, pervasiveness and personalisation

Question 3

3rd paragraph

Answer 3

• Permanence - bad events temporary, pessimists take longer to recover
• Pessimists see positive events as short-lived, optimists believe good things happen for permanent reasons

Question 4

4th paragraph

Answer 4

• Pervasiveness - optimists tend to compartmentalise their helplessness, only feeling helpless about one area of life
• Pessimists extrapolate their failures to all areas of life

Question 5

5th paragraph

Answer 5

• Personalisation - optimists dont blame bad events on internal factors, internalise positive events
• Pessimists blame themselves for negative events and externalise positive events

Question 6

6th paragraph

Answer 6

• Ellis (1957) ABC model CBT to change thoughts
• Adversity
• Belief
• Consequence
• Seligman (1991) added D and E
• D disputation
• E energisation

Question 7

7th paragraph

Answer 7

• Professional sport
• Gordon (2006) football pitch strong correlation between ASQ optimism and performance
• Optimistic soccer players demonstrated better performance during a loss than pessimists
• Rettew & Reivich (1995) positive explanatory style experienced more wins in basketball and baseball

Question 8

8th paragraph

Answer 8

• Academic performance
• PES yields positive outcomes
• Peterson & Barrett (1987) students explained poor performance with internal causes received lower grades during their first year than students who used external causes
• NES less likely to have specific academic goals and made use of less academic advising

Question 9

9th paragraph

Answer 9

• Norem & Cantor (1989) defined defensive pessimism as a coping strategy
• Defensive pessimism prepares for anxiety-provoking events or performances
• Overly anxious about negative result despite good track record
• Defensive pessimism causes harder working
• DPs performed just as well as academic optimists
• Only in short term

Question 10

10th paragraph

Answer 10

• Optimistic illusions of performance aren’t linked with good mental health and rather narcissism (Robins & John, 1997)
• Weinstein, Lyons, Sandman and Cuite (1998) people optimistic about and underestimated radon in homes less likely to engage in risk prevention
• Extrapolated to domains of academic performance and sport - complacency

Question 11

11th paragraph

Answer 11

• Clear OES is important, not exclusively
• OES can increase performance, not without limitations
• Optimism alone cannot be held responsible for success
• Best outcomes combination of expertise, effort and explanatory style
• Mere optimism cannot make up for a lack of skill/knowledge, can enhance these