The Power of Pessimistic Thinking, and How It Might Save us from Covid19

By guest contributor Jeremy Murphy Founder Yourstory Publications and Content

If the later part of 21 st century has a cardinal virtue, it is optimism.

Books upon books of popular psychology have been written
extolling the virtues of thinking positively. The most famous is
perhaps The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr Norman Vincent
Peale, a psychologist, evangelical minister and one-time confidant
of the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Trump admired Peale enough to ask him to officiate at his wedding
to socialite Ivana Trump in 1977. Peale’s belief in the elevating
power of optimism, that by simply believing something good will
happen greatly increases the chances that it will actually happen,
influenced a generation of American CEOs, including Trump.

There is no doubt that thinking optimistically has many and varied
benefits. Positively evaluating your own self and circumstances
increases self-esteem, which is nearly always positive; negative
thought patterns can lead to an overproduction of cortisol, a ‘stress
hormone’ that can cause increased blood sugar and weaken the
immune system. ‘strategic optimists’, people who focus on
achieving the best possible outcome, are far more likely to achieve
precisely that, the best possible outcome; optimists and positive
thinkers are even better at making friends and forming long-lasting
relationships, although not always for the reason people might
think.

Optimists and positive thinkers are more likely to think others
think of highly of them, and therefore more likely to establish
friendships and relationships with other people; we generally like
people when we think they like us!

I have always thought however, that there must be limits to the
power of positive thinking: What psychologists often call ‘naive
optimists’ for example, people who always think the best will come
from a situation no matter how difficult and hopeless it may seem,
must surely eventually get found out by life?

There must be some kind of psychological or emotional cost to perennial optimism in a world which is far from all sweetness and light, and there is indeed.

Dr Julie K. Norem’s book The Positive Power of Negative Thinking
is an interesting addition to the canon of positive psychology, and,
to my mind, presents a far more realistic account of human
psychology than many similar books.

Norem argues that there are certain circumstances where negative thinking can be positive, where a pessimistic attitude can be healthy and beneficial. Imagine hosting a large event, sitting an exam, or performing in front of a large audience in a theatre or concert venue.

‘Dispositional optimists’, people with a habitually bright outlook on life, can overlook some of the common pitfalls in such situations, including
a malfunctioning PA system, an incessant cough, or losing your
script in the last minute, and can therefore fail to adequately
prepare. If you don’t consider all the bad things that can happen,
how can you prepare for them?

What Norem calls ‘defensive pessimists’ in contrast, typically imagine all
the bad things that could go wrong in advance, the acoustics failing,
the cough that won’t go away, losing the script, and prepare for them.
While the ‘strategic optimist’ expects the best, and boldly and confidently
plans to ensure it happens, the defensive pessimist dwells on
potential perils and negatives and plans to avoid or mitigate all of
them. Which strategy produces the best results however, ensures
the best possible chance of success?

Interestingly, Norem thinks that very much depends on the
person’s underlying disposition and nature; optimism suits some
kind of people, pessimism suits others. Asking a natural positive
thinker to dwell on negative possibilities will not work, and will only
generate anxiety, while asking a natural pessimist to ignore
negative possibilities will have precisely the same effect on that
person, it will generate anxiety and lower the success rate.

What is profound about Norem’s work however, is she thinks they
are situations where the pessimist has a competitive edge over the
optimist, in the respect that the pessimist anticipates negative
possibilities, while the optimist represses them.

It is therefore fascinating to wonder where the various strategies
for dealing with Covid19 fall on the optimism/pessimism trajectory.
Are scientists being characteristically optimistic when it comes to
their strategies for dealing with the virus.

In April, the Conversation magazine ran a piece by Ian Boyd, a Professor of Biology at the University of St Andrews, where he argued there were five reasons to feel optimistic about Covid19. With respect to Professor Boyd, and granted hindsight is easy, I think he was wrong on all counts:

1) Covid19 is under control in many countries – I think, six
months on, all countries are struggling to control Covid19;

2) This (Covid19 being under control) has been achieved by all of us
abandoning our way of life temporarily – owing to the longevity
of the pandemic, we could be looking at permanent rather than
temporary changes to our way of life.

3) We know a lot more about how to manage this disease – In Ireland last week, over 40% of our positives were ‘community transmission’, meaning our health officials have no idea where the person in question
contracted the virus. This is high by European standards, but by no
means exceptional. The fact that, six months on, we are still
struggling to trace and track the virus means we still have a long
way to go before we can say, with any confidence, that we are
‘managing’ the disease.

4) We have learned to act in unison on a global scale – I would disagree more avidly with Professor Boyd on this score, as the pandemic has demonstrated the appalling decline in international cooperation and coordination;

5) We know a lot more about our vulnerabilities and how to manage them – our physical vulnerabilities yes, but I think the pandemic has
proved we remain in the dark as to what could be called our social
vulnerabilities.

There has been robust debate over what is the most effective and
strategy for dealing with the virus. In the early months of the
pandemic, most countries opted to ‘lockdown’. Sweden eschewed
this approach, with their Chief Medical Officer Anders Tegnell
arguing lockdowns were destructive and not sustainable in the
long-term; they instead opted for softer restrictions, which he
claimed were more durable.

In my own country of Ireland, an influential group and scientists
and academics have advocated a Zero-Covid policy, resembling
that pursued by New Zealand, where the state would strive to
eliminate the virus, before insulating the country through strict
border controls.

Others have argued for a repression strategy,
which entails us as a society learning to live with the virus. Which
strategy is pessimistic and which ones is optimistic, and does the
psychology of pessimism and optimism have anything to teach us
about their likely success?

One thing that psychology can teach us, is that a person can be
pessimistic when it comes to one aspect of their lives, and quite
optimistic when it comes to another. The Swedish strategy, as far
as I have understood it, was certainly both pessimistic and
optimistic.

The Swedes were certainly pessimistic when it came to
the virulence and longevity of the virus, something they should be
commended for. From the offset, Tegnell saw Covid19 as a
protracted pandemic, something that would be with us for many
years. Some optimists believed Covid19 would follow a similar
trajectory to SARS, and recede after the summer; they were
wrong.

Therein lies the problem with thinking optimistically;
optimistic thinking can be elevating and motivating, but if you
miscalculate a situation concerning hard facts, if you overlook the
negative possibilities, it can seriously backfire. In saying that, if the
Swedes were pessimistic when it came to the virus itself, they
were optimistic when it came their own ability to abide by the
restrictions and regulations, as evidenced by their initial spike in
deaths.

What of Zero-Covid versus a suppression strategy that aims to
‘live with the virus’? ‘Living with the virus’ does seem to be based
on some good ‘defensive pessimism’, at least in the respect that it
is a long-term strategy, it accepts the likelihood of the virus
remaining with us for some time, its restrictions and regulations are
built to be long-lasting, and therefore factors in the population’s
capacity to abide by them.

If the vaccine or treatment is years off, so goes advocates of a suppression strategy, it is hard to see how New Zealand can remain isolated from the rest of the world, busy building their Covid-free paradise in the pacific.

That said, some of the advocates of Zero-Covid argue that their
strategy is actually the more sustainable one. ‘Living with the virus’
necessarily entails yo-yoing between regional lockdowns, and
prolonged economic and social restrictions, which cannot be
sustained over a long period of time.

One of the advocates of
Zero-Covid in my own country, Gerry Killeen, Professor of Applied
Pathogen Biology in University College Cork, argues that most
countries will eventually and reluctantly adapt a Zero-Covid
strategy, when it becomes apparent just how protracted this
pandemic will be, as Zero-Covid ultimately requires less
restrictions in the long-term after the virus has been eliminated.

There is one area however where I have found many
commentators on Covid invariable positive, and guilty as a result of
optimistic thinking at its worst, and that is when it comes to human
nature. Regulations and restrictions are fine in theory, but if people
cannot be compelled to abide by them, the toughest restrictions
become the most lax.

All strategies must factor in the flaws and
fickleness of human nature. I can’t be the only person who detects
a certain palpable weariness with the Covid pandemic as we enter
the winter, with numbers rising across Europe, and largely
because people are failing to follow the already existing
restrictions.

In this respect having more defensive pessimists
involved in our health policy discussions is advised. People being
people will tire of the regulations, and this does not seem to have
been anticipated enough.

Modern psychology is focused on how people feel, on our own
internal feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment, while forgetting how
our emotional well-being is interconnected with the world we
inhabit.

As Norem correctly argues in her book, how we feel is
important, but where we get to is the ultimate goal; defensive
pessimists may come across as moody, glumly focused on what could
go wrong, but it is the destination that counts so often in life,
and if it is pessimistic thinking that leads us there then we should embrace it.

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