Unrealistic optimism about problem drinking is dangerous.

An important part of everyone’s self-concept is a sense of how we compare to others in our behaviors.  A common observation is that many people are overly optimistic in their judgments about themselves relative to others.  For example, on average, people think they are more likely to be successful in business than others, or to be less likely to suffer from serious illnesses than others.  Not everyone can be more successful in business than others, of course, so somebody in that sample must be being too optimistic.

What is the effect of this optimism on behavior?

It is likely that being overly optimistic can have many different effects on behavior depending on the kind of behavior.  In this post, I want to focus on the influence of optimism on drinking.  Amanda Dillard, Amanda Midboe, and William Klein reported an interesting study in the November, 2009 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in which they followed a group of college students for one and a half years.

Students were asked about whether they thought they were more or less likely to be at risk for drinking problems than their peers.  They were also asked about a number of problem drinking behaviors they might have experienced during that semester (including getting sick, blacking out, and missing class.  They were also asked about the amount they typically drank.  In three follow-up questionnaires given every six months, they were asked additional questions about their drinking behavior.

The first question is whether there were people who were unrealistically optimistic?  The answer to that question was clearly yes.  There was a group of people who felt that they were at low risk for drinking problems, yet those people did drink more than their peers.  These people were unrealistically optimistic.  Not everyone was unrealistically optimistic.  There was another group of realists who either did not drink much and correctly felt that they were at low risk for drinking problems or drank substantially but believed they were at risk for drinking problems.

The study then compared the realists to the unrealistic optimists.  The unrealistic optimists were more likely to experience negative events as a result of drinking than the realists in all of the followup periods. Six months after their initial assessment, the unrealistic optimists experienced 20% more negative episodes than the realists, and by the following year, they were experiencing 54% more negative episodes.

There are many reasons why the unrealistic optimists experience so many more alcohol problems than their peers who are realistic about their drinking.  For example, the unrealistic optimists may pay less attention to the consequences of their drinking than the realists in order to maintain their self-concept that they are not problem drinkers.  In addition, the unrealistic optimists may not be as good as the realists at recognizing the potential dangers of drinking.

So, if unrealistic optimism can lead to bad behaviors and bad consequences, why are some people unrealistically optimistic?  One reason is that this optimism may make people feel better in the short-run.  Those people who are unrealistically optimistic are not likely to be worried that their drinking behavior poses a long-term problem, and so they will experience little anxiety about their drinking.  People who are realistic about drinking may have more anxiety about drinking.

In the end, though, at least for behaviors that can have negative consequences like smoking, risky sex, or excessive drinking, it is probably best to be realistic about the dangers of these behaviors.

Get energized about your future…just compare it to your life now

It is easier to set goals than to achieve them.  Setting goals requires only thinking about the future, and envisioning what you would like that future to be.  If you want to learn to sing, you can imagine yourself as a successful singer and how rewarding it would be to sing for a group of people who are enjoying your music.  If you want to become a better student, you can think about studying or passing tests or getting a good report card.  Actually satisfying your goals, though, requires effort.  It requires the energy to move forward and actually carry out a plan to achieve the goal.

Where can that energy come from? 

Research by Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues suggests that there are two key factors that help you get the energy you need to satisfy your goals.  First, your goals need to be realistic, and second, you need to compare the future you desire to your situation right now.  Let me discuss each of these in turn.

The first point seems obvious at some level, but it is really important.  You need to set goals that are realistic.  Your motivational system is actually pretty smart.  If you set a goal that you really cannot achieve, then no matter what you do, you will have difficulty getting the energy to work on it.  Instead, you will have feelings of low energy and frustration.  So, if you are having difficulty getting energized to satisfy a goal, you should spend some time thinking about whether your goal is realistic.

The second important thing to do is to compare your desired future to your present world.  This process has been an important thrust of Oettingen’s research.  The key is to find the differences between what you hope for your future and what is true now, and to assess the obstacles that stand in your way of turning the present into the future.  Thinking carefully about these obstacles allows you to find ways to overcome them. 

Just thinking about the future does not work the same way.  In Oettingen’s experiments, people who contrast the future with the present are much more likely to achieve their goals later than those people who just indulge themselves in thoughts about how nice the future would be if the goal were satisfied.

New research suggests that an important reason why people satisfy their goals successfully when they contrast the future to the present is that this process gives them motivational energy to pursue their goals.  For example, in a paper by Oettingen with Doris Mayer, Timur Sevincer, Elizabeth Stephens, Hyeon-ju Pak, and Meike Hagenah in the May, 2009 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, people were asked to either compare their future to the present when thinking about making a change in a friendship or to just think about a positive future outcome.  Consistent with past research, people who were contrasting the future to the present were more likely to commit to this change in a personal relationship than people who just thought about the future.

At the same time, people’s blood pressure was being examined.  Systolic blood pressure is a reasonable measure of how energized or aroused someone has become.  People showed a bigger change in blood pressure when they were contrasting the desired future to the present than when they were just thinking about the desired future.  This change in blood pressure was highly correlated with people’s statements about how committed they were to actually satisfy this goal.

In later studies, they found that people got energized when they were thinking about goals that were realistic to achieve, but not when they were thinking about goals that are unrealistic to achieve.

So, if you want to achieve your goals, you need motivational energy.  Happily, this motivational energy is easy to come by.  All you need to do is to keep your goals realistic, and then think carefully about the difference between your present reality and your desired future.  When you think about the obstacles that prevent you from satisfying your goals, your motivational system will naturally give you the energy to get started on the road to overcoming the things that stand in the way of what you want.