Why We Find Pessimists to be More Intelligent

This is an experiment of thought. If a film observer continues to praise the film without a little criticism, cinematography, his direction, or even its impact on the community – their reviews are often passed down to the status of “paid reviews.” They are considered as sycophants. Critical review, on the other hand, generally does not experience the same bias: it is treated as an intelligent interpretation by the audience, which might even not agree with the collection of reviewers.

“For reasons that I never understand, people like to hear that the world will go to hell,” wrote Deirdre McCloskey, an economic historian. In other words, some criticism and cynicism are encouraged, if not directly seen as a measure of competence.

Obviously, people are connected to consider pessimistic smarter than others. “If you say the world has become better, you might be able to go with naive and insensitive. If you say the world will continue to be better, you are considered very angry. If, on the other hand, you say the disaster is close, you might expect the Genius Mcarthur award or even the Nobel Peace Prize, “Matt Ridley, a British science writer, who is famous in his book, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity develops. For tangible and intangible reasons, people come to link negativity and despair with a higher level of intellectual talent. How could this happen?

For starters, pessimistic statements – shrouded in destruction and gloom – do better work to attract people’s attention than optimistic. Quoting Morgan Houseel’s book, The Psychology of Money, an article about CNBC, presents comparative analysis, “‘If smart people tell me that the pick stock that will increase 10 times next year, I will immediately write it as bullshit as nonsense; However, if someone … full of nonsense tells me that the stock I have will collapse because of accounting fraud, I will clean my calendar and listen to every word. ‘”

The reason behind the attractiveness of pessimism, here, lies in the fact that it is framed as a call to act. “Think back to your choice!” “Selling your shares!” “Acting this now, or you will regret it later!” Optimism, on the other hand, most of them tell people to stay in the paths that are much easier to push to the back of a person’s head during their daily crowd. Optimism does not sound urgent, generally. It does not tell people that something needs their direct attention. So, pessimistic looks like they are the makers of community change who are constantly shaking everything, while optimism looks like an individual who is only happy and satisfied to keep taking courses.

In addition, optimism sounds easily fooled – it seems unreasonable in holding their hopes. The positives that define optimism can be shallow; Thus, it can resemble “sales promotion;” After a dozen a day call from a credit company, that is something we usually ignore. However, pessimism sounds like smart and caring advice.

Citing housel again, the CNBC article said, “[i] Magine someone who wrote this in the late 1940s after Japan broke his heart in World War II and the future looked gloomy. ‘See today it looks bad, but it won’t be like this forever. In our lifetime, our economy will grow 15x pre-war. Our life expectancy will multiply. Our stock market will sway. Unemployment will not cross 6 percent for decades. We will become world leaders in electronic innovations. We will become very rich so we will have a decent piece of Manhattan, and yes, America will be one of our closest allies. “It’s ridiculous, right? But that’s exactly like that.”

It is natural for this also that pessimism is closely related to the present and tangible. People who are cynical like that because they see and hear the reality of our world – hard, even unhealthy. When an article about psychology currently reflects, there is perception – maybe, rooted in reality – that greater intelligence brings greater awareness about the complexity involved in any situation; Basically, pessimism is only identifying intelligent thoughts. Like Charles Darwin, who is considered his theory of evolution, has stated, “ignorance gives birth to trust than knowledge.”

As a result, it seems somewhat unaware of the risk that pessimism will be in a hurry to show, optimism can look less intelligent by default – making people lend lower weight on their opinions. “I have realized … why pessimism sounds intelligent: optimism often requires believing in a future breakthrough that is unknown and not determined – which seems fantastic and naive. If you are very conscious, wisely, wisely stick to what is known And what is proven, you will be pessimistic, “noted an article about the root of progress.

Another reason behind the allure of pessimism is evolution – we may have evolved in a way that makes it more interesting. We have evolved to expect the worst, explained Martin Seligman, psychologist and former President of the American Psychological Association. Speaking to GQ in 2018, Seligman said, “Species that [are] through the ice age have been bred, and chosen, through pessimism. The mentality that says, ‘This is a beautiful day in San Diego today, I am sure it will be beautiful tomorrow’ destroyed by ice … So what comes naturally for people is pessimism. “

Seligman’s explanation shows that we, maybe, are almost connected to find optimism – which seems to make our ancestors live – not wise than his cousin who reflects, pessimism.

So, it is not surprising that opinions such as “optimism, such as imagination, are childish in the meaning of the best words,” or “I have never met with optimism,” on the internet. This is not a pessimistic proof of certainly smarter than optimism; This only proves our perception of their relative levels of intelligence.