The Best Hopes With Two Clinicians

The Value of Shooting for the Stars

Episode Summary

Let's dive into a thought-provoking conversation about the balance between aiming high and maintaining realistic hopes. Join our certified therapists as they explore whether it's possible to aim too high and how that impacts our sense of hope and overall wellbeing.

Episode Notes

• Reynolds, J. R. & Baird, C. L. (2010). Is There a Downside to Shooting for the Stars? Unrealized Educational Expectations and Symptoms of Depression. American Sociological Review 75(1) 151–172. DOI: 10.1177/0003122409357064. 
  • “What explains our failure to find empirical support for such a longstanding premise in the social psychology of achievement and the popular imagination? The lack of negative emotional consequences of unrealized expectations is in line with the adaptive resilience perspective, which highlights young adults’ ability to problem solve, find offsetting benefits from challenging circumstances, and otherwise focus on the positive aspects of detours in the transition to adulthood. Perhaps, in a country that trumpets competition and the American Dream, ambitious individuals receive positive feedback that offsets the emotional costs of falling short.”
  • The main findings in this article indicate that we should not be in a hurry to dissuade ‘‘unpromising’’ students from planning to go to college. In fact, the only way to guarantee negative mental health outcomes is not trying. Aiming high and failing is not consequential for mental health, while trying may lead to higher achievements and its concomitant mental and material benefits.
• Musschenga, B. (2019). Is there a problem with false hope? Journal of Medical Philosophy, 44(4), 423-441. J Med Philos. 2019 Jul; 44(4): 423–441. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhz010
  • According to Snyder et al., people with “high hope”—a high degree of hope—are not guilty of distorting reality. However, they do have positive illusions. They have a too positive view of themselves, reality, and their possibilities and opportunities. People with “low hope”—little hope—are the ones who suffer from distortion of reality, as well as processes of denial and repression, according to Snyder et al. People with “high hope” stay within what the psychologist Roy Baumeister (1989) calls the “optimal margin of illusion.” Their illusions have beneficial effects and improve their adaptation to reality. According to Snyder et al., false hope is also associated with the pursuit of too many objectives at the same time or by choosing the wrong paths to achieve one’s goal. Even those phenomena do not occur among people with “high hopes.” They conclude that false hope does not exist, by which they mean that false hope is absent among people who really hope—who have “high hopes.”
• Dunning-Kruger Effect (2003): Some people substantially overestimate their abilities. Typically less competent people are the more they overestimate their abilities. 
• Typically honest overconfidence is rewarded with high social status-Cameron Anderson
• Forbes list of 10 things confident people do (July 21, 2017)
  • Get things done-build on accomplishments
  • Monitor progress
  • Do the right thing-live by a value system
  • Exercise (memory retention, focus, prevents stress and depression)
  • Be fearless-be willing to be overwhelmed and fail
  • Stand up for yourself-courage
  • Follow through-Work and give meaning to your words: determination
  • Think long-term-sacrifice for bigger payoffs
  • Don’t care what others think-resolute
  • Do more of what makes you happy
• False Hope Syndrome
  • The False-Hope Syndrome: Unfulfilled Expectations of Self-Change: Janet Polivy  and C. Peter Herman–Highly linked to cognitive distortions