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Explanatory style refers to an individual's habitual way of explaining the bad events that happen to them. People with a more pessimistic explanatory style tend to blame themselves and expect long-term negative consequences that affect many aspects of their lives. In contrast, those with a more optimistic explanatory style tend to blame outside forces and expect limited negative consequences.

Explanatory Style

Narratives spun by past explanations of events set us up for further success or failure. Self-fulfilling prophecies occur when we act on our previous attributions (explanations) of events. I.e., "I failed the last test so I am stupid and it isn't worth studying for the next test because I'll fail anyways"; fails next test; "See I told you I would fail."

Self-fulfilling prophecies

An optimistic explanatory style is characterized by a tendency to attribute bad events to outside forces rather than personal faults. Individuals with this style typically expect that negative occurrences will have limited, short-term consequences.

Optimistic Explanatory Style

A pessimistic explanatory style is characterized by a tendency to blame oneself for negative events. Individuals with this style typically expect that bad events will result in long-term negative consequences that broadly affect many aspects of their lives.

Pessimistic Explanatory Style

Archival research can involve complex measurement and analysis of historical qualitative data. In one study, researchers examined the relationship between optimism and health by analyzing open-ended questionnaires about wartime experiences completed by college students in the 1940s. They used content analysis to extract an explanatory style score for each participant, and then assessed the statistical relationship between these early optimism scores and archival measures of the men’s health at age 60, finding a positive correlation (Pearson’s $$r = +.25$$).

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