THE COMPLEAT CASSANDRA: Positive Negativity

The people of Troy awoke one morning to find the Greeks gone without a trace.

Ok, one trace. One measly guy, all on his lonesome, standing in front of the city gates next to a humongous wooden horse. Poor schmuck was so gutted about being left behind, he was only too eager to spill the tea. Volunteered that Agamemnon et al had given up. Loaded their war toys onto their ships, built a gigantic equine offering to Athena for safe passage home, and set sail – never to return.

“Guess this thing belongs to you now,” he shrugged.

The news spread quicker than soft butter over hot toast. Victory at last! About frikkin’ time. And how about that bitchin’ trophy? Looked like glory. Looked like peace. Looked like Troy was #1 again. It even came conveniently equipped with wheels to roll it through the gates.

After a decade of war and its attendant horrors, deprivations, and losses, Cassandra was no longer the only pessimist in town. When her attempts to get the jubilant crowd to think it through epically failed (if the Greeks had given up, why didn’t they surrender? why the sudden turn-around? what about the traditional end-of-hostilities biz – exchanging prisoners, signing treaties, arranging tributes?), she threw a Hail Mary to her pal Laocoon. Maybe the triumph-giddy hoi polloi would hear what she had to say if it was said it in a male vocal register.

“Be wary of Greeks bearing gifts,” Laocoon advised. Then he had to step aside or get run over by the horse. There was no stopping these folks.

Next morning, the few Trojans who had survived the nighttime carnage had to admit that, in fact, victory was not theirs. The statue’s bloated belly had held death, doom, and destruction. Just as someone had predicted.

“We heard you, Cassie,” the abject prisoners wailed in misery and despair, “but since you’re cursed, we couldn’t believe you.“

Cassandra sighed. Naturally, it was her fault nobody had listened to her.

Whatevs. She couldn’t be angry at such sorry souls. It broke her heart to see them huddled in their chains, sobbing, dazed, unable to fathom how their city’s ruin could be real. Cassie was feeling pretty downcast herself, but as she’d been considering various grim possibilities for years and done her best to prevent them from occurring, she had no trouble accepting the reality of the situation. To her, the future looked grimmer than ever, but unlike Troy’s optimists, she wasn’t surprised, she was still functional, and anxiety didn’t have the better of her.

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For nearly half a century, a few Western psychologists (most notably Dr. Julie Norem, Nancy Cantor, and Edward C Chang) and teams of scientists elsewhere (mostly in Japan) have been studying defensive pessimism: the cognitive strategy of preparing for upcoming situations or tasks by setting low expectations and imagining, in vivid, explicit detail, everything that could possibly go wrong.

Why would anyone in their right mind engage in such an exercise, you ask?

When I was in theatre, I’d have answered, “That’s what they pay me for.” Defensive pessimism is essentially a stage manager’s job description: foresee everything that can possibly go wrong between First Read-Through and Closing Night and make sure none of it happens. NASA flight directors do something similar. Engineers, the same. Actuaries. Risk managers. Information, IT, and cybersecurity specialists. Systems analysts. Financial planners, wedding planners, logistics coordinators, stunt directors …

Defensive pessimism in the service of smooth productions, operations, and events is admired and appreciated. In other contexts, it’s widely disparaged. The very thought of imagining worst-case scenarios can sap an optimist’s joie de vivre and set their inner alarm bells ringing. For the predisposed-to-anxiety defensive pessimist, repeatedly reciting a carefully curated catalog of potential disasters leads directly to effective action that lessens the negative effects of anxiety on their performance.

Take E-Day, 5 Nov 2024, for example. The day the American electorate decided to pull a beady-eyed, ego-inflated, taxidermically-preserved orange elephant through the gates of the White House come 20 January. (Oh, c’mon. You didn’t really think I was ignoring the felonious, demented sexual predator in the room?)

Prior to E-Day, politically-attentive optimists and pessimists consumed the same election news, analyses, and survey numbers. Both were aware that, by all objective measures, the race was insanely close. Both were aware that the most heinously unqualified candidate in United States history was and had consistently been ahead in the polls.

Optimists understood the situation intellectually, but in their heart of hearts could not conceive of a reality where a majority of Americans would cast their ballots for an aspiring autocrat while scads of eligible voters sat on their asses and didn’t vote at all. They had hope, even confidence that Harris would win. When the worst-case scenario came to pass, their reality was shattered. They wept, they crumbled, they fell into despair.

Defensive pessimists understood the situation intellectually, but could absolutely conceive of an America where intolerant, misinformed, frustrated voters deliberately or carelessly cast democracy aside. In our heart of hearts, we hoped we were wrong, but we didn’t fancy Harris’ chances. When the worst-case scenario came to pass, we were distressed about it, and angry, and scared for those about to be in the incipient regime’s direct line of fire. We didn’t burst into tears, though. Didn’t crumble, didn’t despair. Our reality wasn’t shattered. Cassandra-like, we’d seen this scenario as a strong probability, run repeated mental simulations of it, and done what we could to prevent it.

(We wouldn’t have minded if the election results had made us out to be paranoid freaks, btw. We’d have been thrilled.)

I’m not dissing optimists or proselytizing for pessimism. I’m just noting that, in some situations, defensive pessimists have an affectual advantage. Case in point, we didn’t come out of E-Day reeling so badly from shock that we couldn’t hold it together, we didn’t have to spend days and weeks recovering from E-Day trauma, and we’re not still beating a dead “where the Democrats went wrong” horse. Unlike some.

In the immediate aftermath of E-Day, optimists suddenly fell out of favor. They were vilified as Pollyannas, and their hopeful outlook on the future was scapegoated as the reason Dems had lost the Senate and the House. Conversely, for a few strange weeks, pessimists were all the rage. There wasn’t a news outlet, talk show, or podcast didn’t feature interviews with pessimists who had predicted – or at least publicly voiced their opinion – that MAGA-Man would win.

The media soon took their spotlights off the Cassandras. And most optimists have regained their seats on their high horses and are out and about again, scanning the clouds for silver linings, milking these final days of Joe’s presidency for what comfort it can provide, and replenishing their stores of hope by connecting with community on Bluesky or employing their signature “wait-&-see” strategy.

We all use strategies. All the time. We use them to regulate our emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and motivations. A person’s strategies may be rooted in personality traits and states of being, but unlike a transitory state (I’m worried about Grandpa getting home ok) or a chronic, unchanging trait (I’m a worrier), strategies embody our efforts to respond to situations in ways that accord with our personal goals within specific contexts.

Translating that to the O-P continuum: one-size strategy does not fit all. Strategies that work brilliantly for some are poison for others. Even when everyone seems to be in the same boat – under attack by Agamemnon & Company, say, or in peril of a second T-Rump term – anxious people (pessimists) and non-anxious people (optimists) are endeavoring to steer through the choppy waters in entirely different vessels.

When asked about their affectual lives, defensive pessimists consistently report higher levels of trait anxiety, lower self-esteem, more neuroticism, more goal conflict, and more negative affect in general. They don’t harbor high expectations for their performance results and do harbor doubts about future outcomes – even when they have done as well or better than others (optimists) in the past.

In perfect counterpoint to the defensive pessimist, we have the strategic optimist. Studies show that strategic optimists dependably set high expectations, don’t bother about what the future may hold, aren’t concerned about performance situations, and don’t devote any brain cells to contemplating unpleasant possible outcomes. Strategic optimists simply do what they feel they need to do.

Given this contrast, it’s clear why optimists question the value of pessimistic strategies. From their point of view, the idea that pessimism could be useful to anyone is counterintuitive. If defensive pessimists aren’t locked into their nihilist/fatalist/depressive cousins’ mindsets and already perform as well or better than optimists, what’s there to feel glum about? Why can’t they just lighten up?

Optimists prioritize happiness. It’s their goal, what motivates them, what makes life … happy. To optimize their chances for happiness, their strategies focus on avoiding downer thoughts about themselves and downer feelings triggered by considering possible negative outcomes. Just listening to a pessimistic opinion can pop their bubbles of happiness. Fingers in ears, and all’s right with the world. To an optimist, it’s obvious, a no-brainer. Defensive pessimists need to be cured of their pessimism, so everybody can be happy.

One fatal flaw in that plan. Defensive pessimists don’t much care about happiness. Happiness is dandy, but it’s not our priority.

That’s not to say defensive pessimists aren’t happy! On average, a defensive pessimist gets as much “happy” in their life as the average optimist (this according to U.S. studies, no less!). Though defensive pessimists experience more negative affect (unhappy feelings, attachments, moods), they don’t necessarily experience less positive affect (happy versions of the above). Research from Japan indicates that defensive pessimists do better than optimists in terms of affect and performance. Our more balanced affect make us more effective when dealing with challenging situations.

What is our priority? Defensive pessimists are doubly motivated by the desire to avoid failure and to achieve success. Consequently, our strategies focus on performance-oriented goals that involve avoiding screw ups and getting stuff done.

When an optimist – even a strategic optimist – loses touch with their happiness, they become hopeless, depressed, and, in extreme cases, paralyzed. Briefly, as a rule. Sometimes for longer. Based on their experience, they assume that a pessimist – even a defensive pessimist – must be similarly stricken and immobilized when they’re unhappy.

Recognizing the defensive pessimist’s skill in accomplishing things when they’re feeling anxious or blue is germane to understanding the positive side of negativity. If we are speaking generally about generic traits, depression does more often strike pessimists than optimists. But when we distinguish between defensive and fatalistic pessimists, we find the former less likely to become depressed than the latter and not significantly more likely than optimists. A fatalist experiencing negative emotions believes nothing can be done. It’s fate. When a defensive pessimist feels those same emotions, their concern is to do something about it to improve their situation.

But wouldn’t a defensive pessimist be able to accomplish even more if they were in a better frame of mind?

Quite the opposite. Multiple studies have shown that any attempt to disrupt or interfere with any component of a defensive pessimist’s strategy or influence a defensive pessimist to feel more optimistic inhibits their performance and blunts their satisfaction after the event.

When scientists artfully manipulated defensive pessimists into a more optimistic head-space or persuaded them to apply more optimistic strategies to a performative task or situation, their manipulations made the test subjects feel worse and hurt their performance. Positive thinking, relaxation techniques, even being led to believe a positive future outcome was in closer reach than a negative one weakened the defensive pessimists’ strong suits and robbed them of their post-performance sense of achievement.

Implausible as it may seem (to optimists), negative affect and thinking act as powerful positive motivators for defensive pessimists. Rather than ruminating on past performances or getting trapped in gloomy thoughts, they direct their worries, anxieties, and concerns into the future, concentrating on negative scenarios that target the situation or goal they wish to address. This ability to transmute anxious feelings into constructive thoughts and then into concrete action to prevent prospective problems from sabotaging their circumstances or progress is a defensive pessimist’s superpower. It’s also why they’re not at much risk for depression, despite that their world-view may be decidedly bleak.

Our O-P orientations and preferred strategies don’t make a damn bit of difference in terms of what’s coming down the pike. Might make some difference to our frayed social fabric, though, if we acknowledge that neither optimists nor pessimists have the right of it, but both have the right to deal with stress and anxiety – whether personal, relational, communal, social, national, or global – in their own strategic ways. Might make a substantial difference if we stopped visualizing the relationship between optimism and pessimism as a polarity, and started seeing it as two interwoven parts of a balanced whole.

As your friendly neighborhood Cassandra, I gotta tell ya, the future looks hellishly rough.

So if we’ve got to sail into a dubious tomorrow in different boats, how ’bout we drop the whole tug-o’-war thing and use the rope to throw folks in floundering vessels a lifeline now and then? At the risk of sounding wildly optimistic, our best case scenario is we learn to appreciate the gifts the other perspective has to offer: meticulously charted courses through waters where there be dragons from the pessimists, buoyancy from the optimists. Do that, and we’ve got a shot at forming an armada – a cohesive and effective opposition to that feckin’ orange elephant, his fascist-infatuated handler, and the drunk-on-power scuzzball oligarch-sycophants who are or soon will be soiling the seats of American executive, administrative, congressional, and judicial power.

Let’s hope for the best, I’m saying. And prepare for the worst.