Defensive Pessimism: When Worry Does a Real Job.
Defensive pessimism is a strategy of setting low expectations and imagining what could go wrong. For some people, it helps them manage anxiety before a challenge. Also, some fears do come true, and the research has real limits.
When the 8.6 per cent happens.
So what if my fears come true? In LaFreniere and Newman's study, 8.6 per cent of worries did. If one of yours happened, the archive has not failed. Instead, write down how bad it really was versus how bad you pictured it. About three in ten true worries still turned out better than expected.
Defensive pessimism and useful worry.
Is worrying ever useful? In 1986, Julie Norem and Nancy Cantor at the University of Michigan studied defensive pessimism. In their experiments, interfering with that strategy made those people perform worse. Therefore, for them, the worry was doing a job. So you do not need to stop worrying, but you need to keep score.
The limits of a small sample.
Three fears is a tiny sample, and it is not a fair one. You may have deleted conversations about things that went badly. Also, the 91.4 per cent comes from 29 American students, mostly young women, over thirty days. The app study with 117 people points the same way. However, neither study was about founders or followed a fear for years.
Respect defensive pessimism while you keep score.
For any fear that came true, write how bad it was versus how bad you pictured.
Note beside your score that three fears cannot predict today's fear.
From the book.
So here's my claim, and most books about fear won't make it. You don't need to stop worrying. You need to start keeping score. A worry with a record can be trusted exactly as much as its record deserves, while a worry without one gets trusted completely, just because it is loud.
I Want to Start a Business but I'm a Coward, chapter 4: Nobody checked your fear's record
Questions about defensive pessimism.
What is defensive pessimism?
It is setting low expectations and imagining what could go wrong to manage anxiety. Norem and Cantor studied it in 1986.
Does the 91.4 per cent apply to founders?
Not directly. The study followed 29 students over thirty days, mostly on everyday worries.
Where does the book cover fears that are right?
Chapter 7 is about the fears that are right. Some of yours will be.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 4, “Nobody checked your fear's record”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Fear Is a Prediction: Why Your Fears Need Checking.
- 02 85 Percent of Worries Never Happen: The Real Source.
- 03 91 percent of worries do not come true: The Study.
- 04 Review Old Worries Exercise: Score Three Past Fears.
- 05 Hindsight Bias: Why Memory Cannot Judge Old Fears.
- 06 Keep a Record of Your Fears: Change the Conversation.
- 07 Defensive Pessimism: When Worry Does a Real Job.
- 08 Start a Worry Log: Fix Six Common Scoring Traps.