1. Are pessimists actually depressed/ sad, or is that just how we as a society view them. By: Jess Tylor

2. Optimism  The standard dictionary definition of optimism is having hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something.

3. Pessimism  The standard dictionary definition of pessimism is a state of mind where someone anticipates undesirable outcomes or believes that the evil or hardships in life outweigh the good or luxuries.

4. Realism  There are also realists, which in a way are like pessimistic people. They don't expect bad things, but they don't expect good things either. They use facts as a way to see the world, and they don't really hope for good things to happen in the future. They base a lot off of things that have happened in the past, and they use that as a way to predict things that will happen, which leads to thinking that things won't turn out in a good way. A common way to describe realists is they see things for what they are, not how people wish things were.

5.  There is a group that compared twins that either grew up together or were adopted separately at a very young age. They found that how they were raised had a big impact on them being optimists, but not pessimists. I found this very interesting, and I started to wonder if being an optimist was more of a natural feeling or thing to have than pessimism. Study about Twins

6. Other Notes  Many people claim to be one or the other, and usually claim to be an optimist. This is because of the negative stigma about being a pessimist.  Although there isn’t any real proof of exactly what a pessimist or an optimist are, people speculate, which has led to many wrong assumptions.  However, they have proved that there are many positives to being some of both.  A lot of what people say is affected by how they personally see the world, and also by how they have experienced it.  Studies have shown that pessimists and optimists both motivate themselves in their own way.  Other studies have noted that when they gave a ‘pessimist’ and an ‘optimist’ the same problem/ test to solve, they both did equally well on it, just by thinking in their own way.

7. Stereotype

12. Conclusion  So far, through the research that I’ve done, I personally don’t believe that optimists are necessarily happy people, and pessimists are negative, unhappy people. I think that posters like the ones I just showed help to create a negative view on certain people, even though many people are equally pessimistic and optimistic. I feel like as a society, we label everyone we can, even though we don’t know them or their story. I think that if people spent more time looking at what pessimism and optimism really are on a psychological scale, many peoples views would change.

13. Sites  https://www.google.ca/webhp?so...=UTF-8#q=pessimistic https://www.google.ca/webhp?so...=UTF-8#q=pessimistic  https://www.google.ca/webhp?so...;ie=UTF- 8#q=optimism https://www.google.ca/webhp?so...;ie=UTF- 8#q=optimism  https://www.google.ca/search?q...p;ie=UTF-8#q=realist https://www.google.ca/search?q...p;ie=UTF-8#q=realist  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...rsonality-types.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...rsonality-types.html  https://www.google.ca/search?q=pessimism+vs+optimism https://www.google.ca/search?q=pessimism+vs+optimism  https://www.google.ca/search?q=a+pessimist+complains+ about+the+wind https://www.google.ca/search?q=a+pessimist+complains+ about+the+wind  http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...pii/019188699290009E http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...pii/019188699290009E  http://psychcentral.com/blog/a...ssimism-vs-optimism/ http://psychcentral.com/blog/a...ssimism-vs-optimism/  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism