Optimism vs. Pessimism

First I will address the points that Con made then I will move to extending my own points. This may be washed together because that's what tends to happen. 1. Optimism a Physical Health Con is making the argument that optimism is better for your physical health. The major flaw with this argument, and that I pointed out in my first speech, is that these experiments claim to do the possible; to test for optimism vs. pessimism purely. These experiments fail to do so because, as the ARTICLE ITSELF states, "this may be due to optimists having healthier lifestyles. For example, they smoke less, they are more physically active, they consume healthier foods, and they consume alcohol moderately." Now I bring this up because Con seems to believe that these traits are true because pessimists take worse care of their physical health. This is a common misconception, people who take part in these self destructive behaviors do so for a variety of reasons but the main one being struggle. These people are struggling. Con takes the stance that they are struggling due to PESSIMISM, while the truth is these struggles made them pessimistic. I will revisit this argument in mental health because it is very similar. Just because " optimistic people are happier [4] and happier people are healthier people" is true doesn't make it due to optimism, correlation does not equal causation. This very article is listed and used in my opening statement because it shows the flaws of the experiment. In regards to her last point, I took this quote from the same article from the next sentence after Con's reference, "These studies have found that optimistic people experience less distress when faced with potentially life-threatening cancer diagnoses." This is the closest thing I found as to a scientific explanation to substantiate the claim. This is prone to the same argument as the other health benefit experiment, correlation does not equal causation. Just because optimistic people are better at recovering from illness doesn't mean it is because of optimism, literally thousands of other variable are involved in either of these studies yet neither explain how it is due only to optimism. 2. Optimism and Mental Health Everything under this section is flawed for the same reason, correlation does not equal causation. Optimists having less stress proves nothing but my argument that pessimists were created by struggle, which disproves all of Con's arguments so far. The only exception to this is the claim that "This (pessimism) impacts people's ability to deal with assignments..." But in the same link I found this quote: "Across three studies, we demonstrate that those primarily concerned with growth and advancement (i.e., promotion) prefer optimistic forecasts and perform better when adopting an optimistic outlook, whereas those primarily concerned with safety and security (i.e., prevention) prefer pessimistic forecasts and perform better when adopting a pessimistic outlook." Which promotes my argument that both are better when used differently and that different situations call for different outlooks. My argument, however, furthers that to claim that DP is better overall. 3. Optimism and Success It claims that one must believe in their own abilities to take on a new challenge. This has nothing to do with DP vs. SO, because DP is concerned with overcoming predictable and changeable pitfalls and SO is about ignoring the unchangeable and unpredictable. This whole section presumes that pessimists are all just extreme pessimists that hate themselves and everything around them. This is shown in the general negligence, because optimists have the ability to be just as radical. I could claim that optimists are less successful because they are OVERconfident and believe everything will just work out, naive right? It claims that optimists are better in situations that require persistence in the face of extreme adversity. Con has cherry picked this argument. Here is the whole paragraph: "People who are concerned with potential downfalls in a project, for example, tend to handle criticism much better than optimists. Pessimists are always looking to identify the holes or mistakes in a line of thinking so that they can become better. But optimists might fare better in situations where persistence and not giving up, even in the face of extreme adversity, may take them farther than people who focus only on what will go wrong, blocking them from their goal." This article is agreeing with my argument! I stated that DP is concerned with preventing potential pitfalls and the article, eerily may I add, almost word for word states that. Optimists do better in the face of extreme adversity because so often extreme adversity is not self-caused and not predictable, or else pessimists would be better in those situations as well. "Optimists seem intent on facing problems head-on, taking active and constructive steps to solve their problems, while pessimists are more likely to abandon their effort to attain their goals [8]." First off, optimists seem that way because they face less problems due to not properly solving them beforehand. Secondly, this is another example of radical pessimism being compared to rational optimism, which is severely flawed thinking. Following is another study that promotes the idea that both ways of thinking are best used in different scenarios, which is partly my argument. But also, yet again, you can see the little hint of it comparing radical pessimism and rational optimism. This is shown when it implies that only optimists have "promotion focus," when pessimism can be used the same way to produce consistently good work. "Being optimistic doesn't mean being careless and taking profound risks. It means having the audacity of hope to take reasonable risks in the first place." That is exactly what DP is just with a different approach. Have a potential problem you cannot reasonably change? Take the risk and focus on what you can. That is the thought process of DP. Hope is also inherently problematic. Too much and you are naive, not enough and you are unmotivated. Yet again Con is comparing apples to oranges. This is especially apparent when, in the same paragraph talking on the same point, Con quotes: "A pessimist would think, 'I'm such a failure! I never do well in this sport! I'm not trying out anymore.' Meanwhile, an optimist would say 'That's unfortunate, but it's just one try out. I can practice and try again, or try something else I might be better at.'" Just utter fallacy ridden argumentation. Then Con quotes an experiment with swimmers, the article doesn't state how many. Not only does the article claim that optimists "make better athletes" but does so without any evidence to back it up. Does this unknown number of swimmers represent all athletes? Certainly not. The same article is used for the next paragraph claiming optimists make better workers. I quote that article: "A study from Kuwait University found that people who were the most optimistic were also happiest in their jobs and had the fewest work complaints; the opposite was true for pessimists." You could interpret it the way the article did but my interpretation is just as valid, if not more. Pessimists assess the disadvantages or downfalls of situations, I've shown this in my last argument, so therefore they'd be less satisfied. This is because they are less ignorant and more realistic. But onto the specific thing Con quotes. This entire paragraph is more correlation equals causation argumentation, extremely illogical. 4. Optimism and happiness The first two sentences from the first paragraph flawed because of circular reasoning. If you think the world is inherently good > life will work out in your favor > you are likely to perceive your own health and well-being as better > therefore the world is inherently good > etc. The next sentence says that it is "positively correlated," CORRELATED, this proves nothing. Con in the next paragraph states for about the 4th time that happier people are healthier while none of these citations prove that. This second paragraph contradicts con's other arguments saying they are more successful because people that are fulfilled are often not ambitious, because they are happy with what they have. 3rd paragraph is full of correlation equals causation experiments and studies. Optimists may be better dates but I would say it is because they struggle with less problems, which allows them to be optimists, as I have stated before. "As you can see, optimism significantly improves our relationships with others. However it also improves one's relationship with the self. Optimism promotes constructive change and growth. This sometimes takes the form of heightened awareness and spirituality [12]." This statement is not promoted by the citation. All the citation states people with HIV test better in "spiritual, religious, and existential well-being." This is more likely due to therapy addressing the depression or sadness after being diagnosed with HIV, NOT optimism. Nowhere in the article does it substantiate the claim that optimism helps. This could also be due to the placebo affect, they were told it would help so they recorded higher scores. Also could be because of the self fulfilling prophecy affect. These people want to be better, they've convinced themselves this would help, so it does. Conclusion Con's conclusion is as flawed as their citations and interpretation of citations, which is no surprise because those flaws are where they drew their results. All Con has done is copy pasted studies and experiments that show a CORRELATION between optimism and all these wonderful things. I would argue that optimism is over valued in today's society and people claim that being realistic and problem solving is optimistic, which many of these citations have done, which is not optimism. I implore everyone to read "The happiness conspiracy" by newstatesmen