Squishy Post Hoc Stuff

At work today, a question was posed to me by a coworker. "What do you think about prenups?"

After pausing a minute to think I replied, "I think they are very pessimistic. But it's a good kind of pessimism."

We went on to discuss various relationship possibilities: maybe one partner was lying the whole time. Maybe after marriage, a partner decides to stop trying to better themselves. Maybe one partner receives an unfortunate brain injury and their personality is radically altered--the possibilities are endless. In the end if divorce is sought, things are a bit better for both parties, at least financially.

As it turns out, strategies like these aren't just limited to topics like marriage, and they are used by people every day. Also known as defensive pessimism, these tactics are used by people (generally those with some degree of anxiety) and some research suggests that they can actually help improve overall performance. But how?

If one thinks about certain outcomes of failure, that thought of potential failure can motivate that person to try a little harder than they would otherwise. Additionally, identifying issues or "bugs" early on in a task can motivate one to eliminate those "bugs" and arrive at a more favorable outcome.

Even if the outcome of a task ends in failure, when one had lowered expectations to begin with this failure may not deliver as "crushing" a blow had one been expecting a more positive outcome. The lowered expectations effectively act as a mental "cushion" of sorts.

Of course, these strategies are like double-edged swords. If one worries too much about failure, they may simply give up on the end goal or become so fraught with worry that they allocate too many attentional resources to potential problems and lose sight of what truly needs to be done. Ah, Yerkes-Dodson Law, you've done it again!