In a message dated 1/14/2000 3:01:34 PM Pacific Standard Time,
rubingh@delftnet.nl writes:
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Frank Prengel -- to whom cordial greetings ! -- wrote:
>
> > There are psychological studies [...] showing that pessimistic
> > people perform better than those who call themselves
> > optimists in some tasks (among them being certain branches
> > of science). [...] I think there is a strong
> > link between criticism and pessimism.
Of course, the data above is contradicted by Martin Seligman's data in his
books _Learned Helplessness_ and _Learned Optimism_. Cognative psychologists
would not prescribe pessimism as a treatment or solution for anything. In
fact, all (I think all, all that I have seen anyway) the data indicates
pessimism leads to depression where all activities are stopped and the person
sleeps all day.
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