Your Natural Pessimism Is Costing You Money, but There's Reason to Be Optimistic.
Debbie Downer is making minimum wage for a reason.
Pessimists probably think that they make less money than other people. And they're right. A new long-term scientific study of income and attitudes shows that negativity proves costly over the long haul. People's professional lives, it seems, are largely projections of their personal feelings about their professional lives.
“Cynical individuals are likely to lack the ability (or willingness) to rely on others and therefore face serious impairments in regard to living and working in a social world, which undermines their economic success,” German scientists [Olga Stavova and Daniel Ehlebracht]( http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/the-high-cost-of-cynicism?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20miller-mccune%2Fmain_feed%20(Pacific%20Standard%20-%20Main%20Feed) explained to Pacific Standard.
Additional studies revealed that, when examined over the course of nine years, the monthly income of optimistic people increased by $250. Cynical people, on the other hand, saw little to no movement in their bank accounts. Stavova and Ehlebracht did stipulate, however, that this only applies to the most civilized societies. In tougher societies with higher murder rates, cynicism was not found to be a detriment.
Given that different industries breed different cultures, it would follow logically if cynicism proved effective in certain Hobbesian fields (cough, journalism, cough).
But those who drink from half-empty cups shouldn’t despair. Prior studies - and all of the personal experience in the damn world - prove that modifying your behavior and thought patterns is not only possible, but fairly easy. Guides like this can walk you through changing your ways with helpful suggestions like trying to laugh more and befriending optimists in the hopes that their happy will rub off on you. This is apparently a sort of financial fraud, but it's gonna be damn hard to prosecute.
