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pertaining to uncertainty about catching There are four attitudes that are useful,
your flight. all of which share the common underlying
feature of directing thoughts toward a more
favorable perspective:
• The first is adopting a more favorable
perspective in interpreting the actions of
other people.
• The second attitude involves adopting
a more favorable interpretation in
forecasting the impact of a present outcome
on future outcomes.
• The third attitude is a variant of the first
two, but rather than focusing on other
people or on external events, it focuses on
internalised assumptions about what leads
to happiness.
If emotions are always preceded by • Subscription to the three attitudes
thoughts that are idiosyncratic to the described thus far will eventually lead to
emotion in question, it follows that we the adoption of a fourth attitude: enhanced
can change the emotion by changing the confidence in your own ability to deal with
thoughts. Theoretically speaking, we could anything that life throws at you.
experience an entirely different emotion This is the single biggest determinant of
by merely re-interpreting a situation. For happiness. Why? For two reasons.
instance, the anxiousness felt at getting to • First, being confident about facing life’s
the airport on time, could be replaced with challenges generates positive emotions
emotions such as being grateful that there because the confidence will make you feel
was “hardly any traffic which enabled you more hopeful about the future, and will
to get to the airport way ahead of time!” thus enable you to look forward to life.
Anytime you experience a negative • And second, being confident enhances
emotion, all you need to do is to come up the chances of making positive events
with a more positive re-interpretation happen in your life. This is not because
of the event that induced the negative of magic, but because of what is known
emotion and voila, you will start feeling as the hypothesis confirmation bias. The
positive! hypothesis confirmation bias refers to
It is simple in concept but difficult the following phenomenon: if you believe
in practice. Furthermore, you may that a certain outcome will unfold (e.g., if
wonder whether such positively biased you believe that you will get a job or that
re-interpretations are even desirable. you will fail an exam), that outcome has
You could argue that such positive a higher chance of occurring. In medical
reinterpretations could lead you to become circles, this is called the placebo effect. The
a delusional personality - someone who hypothesis confirmation bias has been
does not see reality as it is. More about this established so consistently and across such
later. a wide variety of contexts that I will not
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #66 | DECEMBER 2024 27
