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March 2012
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Among the responses to help solve the current dire world economic situation is a return to optimism. It is argued that the crisis has made people, encouraged by Prof Roubini, to view the future too pessimistically. Behavioural economics purports that mental states are germane to economic activity and economic decision-making is never completely rational or indeed logical. There is a negativity dominance, according to Nobel Economics laureate Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking Fast and Slow.” He suggests that the brains of humans contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news. Because of this, the self is more motivated to avoid bad self definitions than to pursue good ones. However, Barbara Ehrenreich in her book “Brightsided: How positive thinking is undermining America” (2009), argued that in fact, mindless optimism was at the core of a variety of ills in the US including the economic crash. She argued that spending more than you earn and fooling oneself with the belief that things would always work out well was at the heart of the decline in US fortunes. This runs in direct contradiction to the era of positive psychology and the growth of a billion dollar self-help industry, all founded on the idea that the adoption of optimism and the law of attraction will at best solve or at worst help us to cope with every life problem. Optimism as a personality trait has been described as a belief in positive outcomes, the capacity to see the glass as half full instead of half empty regardless of the present circumstances. Its polar opposite is pessimism where the belief is for negative outcomes, again in spite of the circumstances. They therefore reflect a way of looking at the world. While optimism and positive psychology have been blazing a trail, depression has been gathering steam as the illness that best summarises the contemporary life experience. This is leading younger people to commit suicide and engage in destructive behaviour as they try to cope with unprecedented access to information and influence. Self worth is taking a battering. In some ways this is not surprising as it has been shown by researchers that raising self esteem decreases materialism while increasing materialism decreases self esteem. The use of material possessions as a strategy for coping with feelings of low self worth is thus easily established. In addition, there is copious health psychology literature linking optimism with improved outcomes in a variety of illnesses and also in preventing or delaying the onset of these illnesses. It has been reported that people who score highly on optimism scales have 55% decreased all cause mortality and have decreased morbidity from cardio and cerebrovascular disease: that is, heart attacks and strokes. They also survive longer with breast cancer and generally report less distress with a range of cancers and other serious chronic illnesses. Optimism is now being replaced by conscientiousness as the best health protecting and reinforcing personality trait. Being able to do and persist with the work to maintain health and attend to the details that would optimize health behaviour seems to be the key to good health. This also implies discipline and long term adherence to best evidence-based practice. Here in Trinidad, optimism is never in short supply as people ignore global problems with the familiar yet ludicrous refrain that God is a Trini. It is unclear where and how this originated, but in other cultures, particularly those with a high tolerance for alcohol and religious rituals, it has also been reported. It probably reflects an intrinsic fear of mortality which is also related to negative perceptions of self. In psychoanalytic terms, it is a kind of reaction formation. That may be changing as a combination of the negative world economic situation and the seemingly intractable social and political problems in the country are beginning to undermine this perspective. Trinidadians are remarkably adept at holding two and sometimes several contradicting position at the same time. This has prompted some to suggest that we would rank quite high in a world hypocrisy index. The non-communicable chronic disease statistics in Trinidad, which show high rates for diabetes and hypertension and high rates of the complications of these diseases, would then suggest that our brand of optimism has been in short supply. Alternatively, other habits arising out of mindless optimism such as excessive drinking, non compliance with treatment and preventive regimens, and a lack of conscientiousness are responsible for the persistence of negative outcomes. Given the economic crises and our health situation, the key might be to develop judicious optimism and more closely correlate our behaviour with observable reality as against wishful thinking. Surveying the newspapers, that barometer of zeitgeist, I have found that on a daily basis between 55% and 65% of news stories carry bad or negative news, whether they are related to crime, economic problems, international hostilities or accidents like the recent crash of a cruise liner. This also undermines a sense of optimism, and in a year where predictions have been made about the end of the world, it is no surprise that optimism may be on the decline. There is the pervasive sense that the pie is shrinking, whether it be economic or physical resources. This makes loss aversion even more powerful. When this is allied to a sense of entitlement, as in a society where people have been led to believe that the State is directly responsible for their income-earning, then acrimonious battles are far more likely. Even the guru of positive psychology Martin Seligman who authored the much touted book “Authentic Happiness” is rethinking the approach. He writes in his latest book (“Flourish”) that the idea that optimism is always good is a caricature and it misses the importance of negative emotion. He suggests it must be paired with reality testing to ensure that overly positive expectations are not misplaced. Reality testing is perhaps the most important function of our minds and reflects the capacity to accurately gather information from both the internal and external world, then to interpret this information effectively and adaptively and so inform decisions and actions that would be appropriate and ultimately beneficial. According to Kahneman however, most of us view the world as more benign than it really is. Kahneman also notes that we tend to exaggerate our ability to forecast the future, which in turn fosters overconfidence. The ability to test reality effectively is the necessary accompaniment if positive results from optimism are to be obtained. It also ensures that that behaviour, both individual and group, can be consonant and adaptive. This will be what is necessary to overcome the optimism bias that might be intrinsic to so many people and prevent them from acting in ways decrease the greater good. Roubini himself at the World Economic Forum in Davos recently concluded has called for a change in policy priorities in order to fashion a response to the economic crisis. He suggested a greater focus on human capital to give growth to skills, jobs and education in order for workers to compete. He also suggests that rising inequality between the rich and poor is the greatest source of geo-economic, social and political instability. He called for solutions to the world’s economic problems to be derived from a comprehensive assessment of the situation for all of the world’s inhabitants. This resonates with Trinidad and Tobago where, while the education system has sought to create opportunities; it has not been sensitive to those with social and developmental problems that would deny them the facility to utilize the available opportunities. The result is crime and social instability and the need for a welfare state which seems increasingly out of sync with the economic realities of the modern world unless it minimizes the gap between rich and poor. In the light of recent reality, a dose of pessimism might be necessary to counter the likely pain of loss that will inevitably occur if we continue on our present path. Prevention by helping our youth and general population to view the world more realistically and set their expectations accordingly is what is needed to diminish the spread of depression as the archetypal illness of the twenty-first century. God might be depressed too, as a survey of the world’s situation is not comforting, even with the optimism bias that comes from sharing nationality with Trinis. The end of optimism is here. This is the third in a series on mental health issues by Professor of Psychiatry, Gerard Hutchinson. Professor Hutchinson is the head of Department, Clinical Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, EWMSC, UWI. |
Professor Nouriel Roubini, of the Stern Business School, New York, has been dubbed Dr Doom because of his gloomy but accurate prediction of the economic crisis in the United States in 2008. He continues to predict difficult times ahead for the global economy, suggesting that it might take this entire decade to recover from the fallout of the current economic crises facing the world.