Is Optimism Overrated? Rethinking Positive Thinking |
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Optimism works best when you have control or influence; it falters when outcomes aren’t yours to shape.
If we overinvest in optimism, we spend our energy chasing the future while neglecting current blessings.
Optimism predicts a better future; gratitude produces a better present.
Optimism, tempered with gratitude, is a wise way to live.
“I’m grateful. I’m happy. I’m proud of myself. I practice mindfulness. I’m optimistic.” Do these mean the same thing? People often use them interchangeably, but definitions have consequences. When we blur them, we miss what’s unique about gratitude—and we miss its power. Optimism may be slightly overrated, while gratitude deserves more airtime. In a recent paper, Nayoung Cho and I review various definitions of gratitude and argue that the 5As best capture it:
Attribution to External Sources
Affectionate Reaction
Generalized Gratitude
Gratitude involves appreciating the benefits in your life. Appreciation isn’t just noticing that something good happened (“yes, this steak is delicious”). It includes a positive emotional connection to the benefit.
Too often, we let goodness slip by like a shadow in the background. If you practice appreciation, you savor the good—delight in it, dwell on it, celebrate it. Gratitude also involves attributing your benefits to external sources—people, nature, luck, circumstances, God, or a higher power. I call this the principle of gifts: you’re not the sole author of goodness in your life. Combine appreciation and attribution—the first two— you get generalized gratitude.
A more specific form is targeted gratitude. This adds attribution to agentic benefactors with benevolent motives—the third A. By “agentic,” I mean entities that can choose and act intentionally: human beings, some animals, and God or gods (if you believe in the personal nature of the divine). Agentic beings can be kind—unlike non-agentic entities such as mountains, cars, or smartphones. And when you experience targeted gratitude, you’re not just acknowledging that someone benefited you, you’re also saying something about their motives—this person prioritized your welfare, wanted to help, or cared about you.
There’s one more piece—the fourth A: an affectionate reaction toward your benefactor. This doesn’t mean romance—it means warm feelings, fondness, goodwill toward your benefactor.
Finally, actionable gratitude adds the fifth A: action toward your benefactor. It presupposes the other four As but moves from feeling to doing. That could mean saying thank you, practical reciprocation, honoring them, showing physical affection, or simply spending quality time with them.
All three—generalized, targeted, and actionable—are legitimate. But targeted gratitude is more meaningful than generalized gratitude, and actionable gratitude is the highest expression of gratitude. Generalized gratitude acknowledges the outside sources, but it's still somewhat self-focused. Nothing wrong with that. Yet when you offer heartfelt thanks to a benefactor, you radiate goodness beyond yourself. You recognize you’re blessed, and you return the blessing.
Think of the 5 As as rungs on a ladder:
Good: appreciate goodness and attribute it externally (generalized).
Better: attribute it to someone else and develop warm feelings toward them (targeted).
Best: turn feelings into deeds (actionable).
In short, gratitude points you outward. It’s not just feeling good; it’s recognizing connections, acknowledging gifts, and acting on that recognition. Practiced this way, gratitude deepens relationships, strengthens communities, and enriches your life in ways happiness alone can’t. Want to live more gratefully? Climb the ladder. Add more As. Now that we know what gratitude means, we can see how it differs from other similar concepts.
Being Grateful vs. Being Happy
People are often happy when they’re grateful, but not necessarily grateful when they’re happy. Happiness is “things are going well,” without considering the source. Gratitude says: Something outside me or someone else contributed to my well-being.
Feeling Grateful vs. Feeling Proud
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Both involve appreciating a benefit, but they differ in perceived source. Pride credits yourself; gratitude credits something or someone beyond yourself. In a study of recalled positive experiences, my colleagues and I found that pride and targeted gratitude (feeling grateful to someone else) were close to zero in correlation. You can feel both—recognizing your hard work and others’ help.
Gratitude vs. Mindfulness
Mindfulness means bringing attention to the present—noticing without judgment. But mindfulness is neutral; gratitude is not. Gratitude judges what you’ve received as positive—that’s why you appreciate it.
Feeling Grateful vs. Feeling Optimistic
Grateful people tend to be optimistic, but they’re not the same. Optimism is a belief about getting something you don’t have yet—it’s future-oriented. Gratitude is present and past-focused—appreciating what you’ve already received.
Optimism Is Slightly Overrated: Why Gratitude Deserves More Airtime
Optimism is highly valued in American society—even if Americans aren’t necessarily more optimistic than others. Research shows that optimism has real benefits—health, relationships, even income.
Optimism works best when you have control, such as how much effort you put into your job. If you’re optimistic about your career, you may invest more energy, which can translate into better prospects. But optimism is less useful when we’re hoping for things beyond our control. Many things aren’t up to us. I care deeply about stopping wars around the world, but I can’t control these outcomes. Once, on a whale-watching tour, the passengers were urged to use the power of positive thinking to believe we’d see whales. We didn’t—the whales were shy that day. No amount of positivity could change that.
Sometimes a dose of reality is needed. The future is unknown. Uncertainty is real. You can’t be sure the stock market will keep rising or that a cancer in remission won’t return. If we overinvest in optimism, we can spend our mental energy chasing the future while neglecting current blessings.
Bottom line: Optimism predicts a better future; gratitude produces a better present.
Optimism believes you can acquire what you don’t yet have; gratitude cherishes what you’ve already received.
Optimism, tempered with gratitude, is a wise way to live.
This installment is the first in a mini-series on the Grammar of Gratitude; we explore how gratitude differs from other similar concepts.This entry also appears in my Substack newsletter on the science and practice of gratitude.
Wong, Y. J., Cho, N., & Pandelios, A. L. (2024). Feeling good versus doing good: Reclaiming a moral vision for the psychology of gratitude. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 9, 1273–1291. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41042-024-00157-2