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Attitude, Achievement, and Health
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19812 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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5 / 1991 |
4,369 Words |
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Audrey DeLaMartre
Audrey DeLaMartre, a free-lance writer and editor residing in
Minneapolis, writes a nationally published books column for
the recovery community and a books column for the
(Minneapolis) Star Tribune. |
LEARNED OPTIMISM
Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D.
New York: Knopf, 1991
319 pp., $19.95
THE SELF-HEALING PERSONALITY
Why Some People Achieve Health
and Others Succumb to Illness
Howard S. Friedman, Ph.D.
New York: A Donald Hutter Book, Henry Holt, 1991
243 pp., $19.95
Like the biblical rain that falls on the just and unjust, "life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist," says Martin Seligman, in Learned Optimism, "but the optimist weathers them better." Optimists have demonstrably better health and, seemingly, better luck, he shows, because optimistic people feel in charge and therefore take more charge of their lives, which gives them a positive and hopeful attitude. That attitude affects their health, and he demonstrates this by citing a nursing home study comparing control and choice versus helplessness.
Seligman, UPS Foundation Professor of Social Science, director of clinical training in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and author of five books, draws four conclusions from the "scientific laboratory evidence" of the past five years. The evidence "strongly suggests that optimism should benefit health" in four ways: First, by "keeping immune defenses feistier"; second, by encouraging optimists to "stick to health regimens and seek medical advice"; third, by reducing feelings of helplessness and thereby reducing the impact of the "sheer number of bad life events encountered"; and fourth, optimistic people have better "social support" which supports a positive attitude.
The essential difference between optimists and pessimists, Seligman shows, is how we interpret or explain to ourselves good and bad events--"it's all my fault" versus "I had lousy luck"--which is called "self-talk," and which in turn determines how deeply the events impact our lives.
An optimist will look at a misfortune as something temporary that isn't necessarily his fault. It constitutes a challenge to try harder, to overcome the bad luck or the circumstances of this particular occasion. He will have better than average
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