This broader concept is based on the theory that optimism and pessimism are drawn from the particular way people explain events. Optimism may also be linked to health.Įxplanatory style is different, though related to, the more traditional, narrower definition of optimism. It has also been suggested that optimism could appear to be a hereditary trait because it is actually a manifestation of combined traits that are mostly heritable, like intelligence, temperament and alcoholism.
While the heritability of optimism is largely debatable, most researchers agree that it seems to be a biological trait to some small degree, but it is also thought that optimism has more to do withenvironmental factors, making it a largely learned trait. For example, Martin Seligman and his fellow researchers define it in terms of explanatory style, which is based on the way one explains life events.Īs for any trait characteristic, there are several ways to evaluate optimism, such as various forms of the Life Orientation Test, for the original definition of optimism, or the Attributional Style Questionnaire designed to test optimism in terms of explanatory style. Researchers sometimes operationalize the term differently depending on their research, however.
This is usually referred to in psychology as dispositional optimism. The word is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning “best.” Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, ultimately means one expects the best possible outcome from any given situation. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass with water at the halfway point, where the optimist is said to see the glass as half full, but the pessimist sees the glass as half empty. This understanding, although criticized by counter views such as pessimism, idealism and realism, leads to a state of mind that believes everything is as it should be, and that the future will be as well. The more broad concept of optimism is the understanding that all of nature, past, present and future, operates by laws of optimization along the lines of Hamilton’s principle of optimization in the realm of physics. The concept is typically extended to include the attitude of hope for future conditions unfolding as optimal as well. LotsOfWords knows 480,000 words.Optimism is a mental attitude or world view that interprets situations and events as being best (optimized), meaning that in some way for factors that may not be fully comprehended, the present moment is in an optimum state. National Scrabble Association, and the Collins Scrabble Words used in the UK (about 180,000 words each). The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD) from Merriam-Webster, the Official Tournament and Club Word List (OTCWL / OWL / TWL) from the Please note: the Wiktionary contains many more words - in particular proper nouns and inflected forms: plurals of nouns and past tense of verbs - than other English language dictionaries such as
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