Seligman's Explanatory Styles​: UGC NET Notes and Study Material

The theory of Explanatory Styles by Seligman focuses on the explanation of life events by an individual, thus determining his emotional well-being and behavior. In this regard, he divided the explanatory styles into three dimensions: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. A positive explanatory style leads to optimism, while a negative style leads to pessimism. Knowing about these styles helps an individual understand the thinking patterns that might have negative impacts on his psyche. This theory demonstrates the power of mindset in living one's experiences and responses to adversity.

Seligman's Explanatory Styles is a vital topic to be studied for the psychology related exam such as the UGC NET Psychology.

In this article the readers will be able to know about the following:

• Seligman's Explanatory Styles- Introduction
• Seligman's Explanatory Styles- Explanation
• Seligman's Explanatory Styles- Examples

Seligman's Explanatory Styles- Introduction

The Explanatory Styles theory by Seligman examines how individuals perceive events of their life and the importance of such perception for mental health. It breaks down explanatory styles into three pivotal dimensions: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. An optimistic explanatory style perceives problems as temporary, local, and not personally significant. This seems to be contrary to the case for a pessimistic style that tends to portray problems as permanent, pervasive, and personally attributed. These are essential styles of comprehension on how mindset affects emotional wellness and how much resilience one has when adversity is met.

Seligman's Explanatory Styles- Explanation

Explanatory Styles theory by Seligman generally explains how human beings explain events occurring in their lives, and psychological consequences attributed to these explanations. As the explanatory styles come into two fold, the approach explains to the individual the contribution of the mind toward happiness and unhappiness.

Permanence

Permanence Dimension is the belief of people about the length of time of their difficulties. Optimists see problems as transitory; they believe that difficulties will pass. On the other hand, pessimists tend to view them as of long duration and not to change, an instrument of hopelessness.

Pervasiveness

Pervasiveness concerns the way people generalize their experiences and across different areas of life. Optimists tend to view failures as isolated events while, on the contrary, pessimists believe that negative events affect everything in their lives and create a much broader sense of despair and helplessness.

Personalization

Personalization is the extent to which people attribute causes of events to their own behavior. Optimists tend to externalize their failures; they always attribute them to causes outside the self, while pessimists internalize the failings, believing that their shortcomings are the core cause and lead to a decline in self-esteem and motivation.

Seligman's Explanatory Styles- Examples

Using concrete examples from life to illustrate the differences in interpretation between optimism and pessimism according to Seligman's Explanatory Styles theory, it may become apparent that the explanatory style has a predominating influence over what emotions are verbalized and overall well-being.

Permanence

An example of the property of permanence is when two students get a bad grade on a test. The positive one thinks, "I did not study enough this time, but I can improve next time," while the negative student may think, "I have always failed at tests; I will never ever do well." Such thoughts lead to an extended sense of failure.

Pervasiveness

On the dimension of pervasiveness, consider two employees who are criticized by their manager. The positive employee might regard the comment as limited in scope to a given project, thinking that he or she "can improve next time," whereas the negative employee might generalize that criticism, believing that "I'm bad at my job in general," which would reduce motivation and job satisfaction.

Personalization

While personalizing, think of two friends where disagreement comes. The positive friend may think, "We misunderstood each other; it happens," whereas the negative friend may think, "It's my fault; I always mess up relations," thus having a bad self-concept and fearing a similar experience in future relationships.

Conclusion

Seligman's Explanatory Styles theory draws attention to the fact that cognitive factors play a significant role in mental health and resilience. The expectation was that by creating a more optimistic explanatory style, the emotional well-being of people would be enhanced and challenges dealt with much better. Interventions deriving from the theoretical perspective based on Seligman's theory produce better outcomes during therapy and personality development. A constructive explanatory style can therefore empower people by giving them control over their own stories. Awareness of changing one's explanatory style can change the experience a person has during the ups and downs of life.

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