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If you plan, then you can: How reflection helps defensive pessimists pursue their goals

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Abstract

This research examines how the two propensities that underlie defensive pessimism (pessimism and reflection) operate independently to influence the defensive pessimistic process. It investigates the hypothesis that the propensity to reflect, or plan, counteracts the detrimental effects of pessimism by encouraging not only planning, but also the pursuit of those plans. Consistent with these predictions, two studies revealed that the propensity to reflect helped defensive pessimists pursue their plans by (a) increasing goal importance, (b) promoting effort, (c) raising initial expectations, and (d) buffering the anticipated sting of failure. Pessimism hindered performance by increasing anxiety and lowering expectations. Thus, the propensity to reflect counteracts pessimism by not only promoting planning, but also processes that help the pursuit of those plans.

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Notes

  1. The original measure of defensive pessimism, the defensive pessimism questionnaire (DPQ), sometimes called the Optimism Pessimism Prescreening Questionnaire (OPPQ), did not assess pessimism independently of reflection (Norem and Cantor 1986b). Defensive pessimists reflected about pessimistic outcomes (e.g., I often think about what I would do if I did very poorly in an academic situation), and their counterparts, strategic optimists, reflected about optimistic outcomes (e.g., I often think about what it will be like if I do very well in an academic situation). Consequently, it was impossible to differentiate these two processes. Since then, research has revealed that strategic optimists do not engage in any type of reflection, even thinking about positive outcomes hurts their performance (Spencer and Norem 1996).

  2. Martin and his colleagues argue that it is important to examine defensive expectations, which measure the extent to which individuals adopt a defense posturing in their expectations. They argue that this approach better captures the defensive quality associated with defensive pessimism. Defensive expectations, however, have not been traditionally examined within the research. Thus, we focus on Norem’s conceptualization of the defensive pessimistic process.

  3. Letter grades were transformed into percentile grades by making each letter grade the lowest possible percentile score needed to get that grade (e.g., A = 92, A− = 90, B+ = 88, etc.).

  4. We did not plan on doing any longitudinal analyses because cognitive strategies, like defensive pessimism, are malleable. Norem (2001a) writes that cognitive strategies “… describe important individual differences, they are not assumed to be stable over time and consistent across situations the same way as traditional traits, motives, or styles. Theoretically they are potentially malleable.” pg. 78. In order to be thorough, however, we conducted several basic longitudinal analyses. First, we examined whether pessimism and reflection predicted outcomes at T2. They did have predictive power. Pessimism tended to predict anxiety, β = .18 p = .10, and reflection predicted goal importance, β = .25 p < .05 at T2. Neither of them predicted expectations, perhaps because these later expectations may be heavily influenced by individuals’ actual experiences in the class. It is important to note that these associations did not remain once anxiety and goal importance at T1 were taken into account. We also examined whether the outcome measures at T1 could predict pessimism and reflection at T2 by conducting regressions in which the outcome measures at T1 predicted pessimism and reflection at T2, controlling for pessimism and reflection at T1. No significant results emerged (all p’s >.14).

  5. According to Byrne (2001), RMSEA values less than .05 indicate a good fit, .05 to .08 represent reasonable fit, .08 to .10 indicate mediocre fit, and greater than .10 indicate poor fit.

  6. Past work has examined defensive pessimists’ general affective reactions, which includes positive, as well, as negative emotions (Sanna et al. 2006). In order to make sure that these results generalize to this work, we added the item about happiness.

  7. To examine the link between anxiety and effort for true pessimists and defensive pessimists, we classified respondents based on whether they were low/high in pessimism and reflection. Anxiety was not correlated with effort, r(15) = .35, ns, for true pessimists (high pessimism/low reflection), but anxiety was correlated with effort, r(27) = .36, for true defensive pessimists (high pessimism and reflection). Thus, for true pessimists anxiety did not spark effort, but, it also did not decrease effort. Anxiety may not have decreased effort due to the fact that both variables were measured two days prior to the test. It may be that anxiety’s detrimental effect on effort becomes more apparent as anxiety increases due to the examination becoming more imminent.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Elizabeth Pinel and Kristen Eyssell for their helpful feedback. Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago, Illinois.

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  1. Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, 437 Moore Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Karen Gasper, Regina H. Lozinski & Lavonia Smith LeBeau

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  1. Karen Gasper
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Correspondence to Karen Gasper.

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Gasper, K., Lozinski, R.H. & LeBeau, L.S. If you plan, then you can: How reflection helps defensive pessimists pursue their goals. Motiv Emot 33, 203–216 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-009-9125-5

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