Between sips of McGinty's Cerebral Tonic for Clear Thinkers, I have been reading a book by Martin Seligman called Learned Optimism.
Seligman began by researching learned helplessness. He describes one of his early experiments:
In early January of 1965, we exposed the first dog to shock from which it could escape and the second dog to identical shocks from which it could not escape. The third dog was left alone. The next day, we took the dogs to the shuttlebox and gave all three shocks they could easily escape by hopping over the low barrier dividing one side of the box from the other.
Within seconds the dog that had been taught to control shocks discovered that he could jump over the barrier and escape. The dog that earlier had received no shocks discovered the same thing, also in a matter of seconds. But the dog that had found that nothing it did mattered made no effort to escape, even though it could easily see over the low barrier to the shockless zone of the shuttlebox. Pathetically, it soon gave up and lay down, though it was regularly shocked by the box. It never found out that the shock could be escaped merely by jumping to the other side.
Donald Hiroto, a graduate student at Oregon State University, designed experiments with people parallel to those done with dogs. Some groups were given control over loud noise in a room. Other groups could do nothing to stop the noise. A third group was subjected to no noise at all.
The results were the same. People also learn helplessness.
Hiroto also found that one out of every three people whom he had tried to make helpless did not succumb. One out of three animals, too, did not become helpless following inescapable shock. Why? Who never gives up?
The researchers discovered that much depends on how we think about the causes of the misfortunes, small and large, that befall us. Some people, the ones who give up easily, habitually think: "It's me, it's going to last forever, it's going to undermine everything I do." Those who resist giving in to misfortune think, "It was just circumstances, it's going away quickly anyway, and besides, there's much more in life." Thus began Seligman's fascination with the differences between optimists and pessimists.
The researchers also discovered that the symptoms of learned helplessness are nearly identical to depression. They believe that the cause of both is the same: the belief that your actions will be futile.
The arguments for optimism are strong:
- Optimists consistently perform better at school and at work.
- Optimists catch fewer infectious diseases than pessimists do.
- Our immune systems may work better when we are optimistic.
- Evidence suggests that optimists live longer than pessimists.
I pondered this in terms of my JW experience. In many ways, it was much easier to be an optimist as a JW. If I did something bad, I could blame it on sin, the weakness of the flesh, or the temptations of this world and Satan. If something bad happened to me, it was likely persecution. None of this was certainly going to last forever because the end was coming soon. Weakness would not undermine everything I did if I only had faith and relied on Jehovah. My actions were not futile. I was part of a dramatic moment in human history, part of a large army!
I contrast this with how I felt when I discovered that much of what I believed as a JW was false. It was daunting to consider that perhaps lasting historical change requires sustained effort and dedication over many generations, not just one. Perhaps God would not step in and neatly tidy things up soon. Perhaps I am just one puny little human being in an enormous universe. Perhaps my existence is futile.
Seligman writes about religion and optimism:
It is often thought that religion produces hope and allows troubled people to better face the trials of this world. Organized religion provides a belief that there is more good to life than meets the eye. Failures of individuals are buffered by belief in being part of a much larger whole: Buffering takes place whether the hope is as concrete as a golden afterlife or as abstract as being part of God's plan or just part of the continuity of evolution. Findings on depression bear this out. Conducting studies in the Outer Hebrides, George Brown, the London sociologist who has made a life's work out of interviewing depressed housewives, has shown that staunch churchgoers experience less depression than nonchurchgoers.
The flip side? There is considerable evidence that depressed people, though sadder, are wiser. Seligman cites specific experiments and then says:
These have been the consistent findings over the last decade. Depressed people--most of whom turn out to be pessimists--accurately judge how much control they have. Nondepressed people--optimists, for the most part--believe they have much more control over things than they actually do, particularly when they are helpless and have no control at all.
Does honesty preclude kindness? Does kindness preclude honesty? Should I share information with optimistic JWs? What if the truth deeply depresses them?
Ginny