ABSTRACT
Learned optimism involves more than looking on the sunny side of life. Seligman conceptualized it as a set of cognitive skills that promotes resilience and flexibility. Learned optimism allows authors to reattribute their negative pessimistic explanations for more optimistic causes. According to Seligman, pessimistic thinking is escapable by learning and practicing cognitive skills that enable them to take charge and accomplish more through the ABCDE strategy: Optimism's cousin is hope, believing reader's have both the will and the way to accomplish their goals. Snyder and colleagues studied how hope interacted with intellectual aptitude and academic achievement among college students: Students of equivalent intelligence who attained different levels of academic achievement differed in their levels of hope. Hope was a better predictor of academic achievement than the often-used SAT scores. Hope feeds off of optimism; if students have developed the skill of learned optimism, then students' cognitions will also set them up to have the positive motivational state of hope.
