"As a Man Talketh"   


When we talk to others, even in casual conversation, we 
are also talking to ourselves. And what we say influences 
how we feel and how we view and experience our world. 

For example, does a person's language suggest that 
s/he makes things happen – that they are causal – or that 
s/he is a hapless victim of circumstance? 

I have an old college friend who talks almost 
exclusively in victim language. He makes statements 
such as “Next week, I'm going to try to contact those 
references” and “I should have got my Christmas 
cards written.” This is the language of struggle and 
self-blame. Things happen to him instead of him 
causing things to happen. It is not a language style 
that includes choice. 

He does not use statements like “Today I choose 
to finish my correspondence” or “I want to call those 
references,” and only rarely “I am going to 
finish that job this afternoon.” His talk does not 
come from his center, but instead suggests outside 
forces are pushing him, as in “I know I should 
change my internet provider.” It is no mystery to 
me that his tasks don't get done. 

Professor Martin Seligman has used the term 
“explanatory style” to denote the way we think 
about and explain to others why things happen to 
us. In his book, Learned Optimism (1990) he 
writes: 

“How do you think about the causes of the 
misfortunes, small and large, that befall you? 
Some people, the ones who give up easily, 
habitually say of their misfortunes: ‘It's me, 
it's going to last forever, it's going to undermine 
everything I do.' Others, those who resist giving 
in to misfortune, say: ‘It was just circumstances, 
it's going away quickly anyway, and, besides, 
there's much more to life.'” (p. 44) Whether you 
are an optimist or a pessimist is determined by 
your explanatory style. 

If you talk about bad things happening with always's and 
never's – what Seligman calls Permanence – you have a 
pessimistic style. For example, “Diets never work” 
(permanent) instead of “Diets don't work when you eat out.” 
(temporary). Conversely, when we explain good events in 
permanent terms -- such as a raise at work – we'll tend to 
be optimistic. “I'm good at what I do” is a statement of 
permanence. “I worked hard to complete the project” 
is temporary. 

A second dimension of explanatory style is Pervasiveness. 
A circumstance is either universal or specific. When asked 
why he failed an important examination, George might say 
“I wasn't as smart as the others” (universal, thus pessimistic) 
or “I didn't prepare for it well” (specific, and optimistic.) 
When we explain bad events that happen in universal terms, 
we make them permanent and our outlook crumbles into 
pessimism. When we explain bad events in specific terms, 
we are optimistic and can try again. 

People who blame themselves when they fail, when 
they internalize the cause for failure, tend to have low 
self-esteem and pessimism as consequences. Rabbi 
Kushner's best selling book, “When Bad Things 
Happen to Good People,” suggested that we can be 
a good and worthy person even if bad things sometimes 
happen. When we externalize the cause of a troubling 
event (“They downsized me to cut costs”) instead of 
internalizing it (“I wasn't good at my job, and I got 
laid off”) we can retain our self-esteem. 

Psychologists have long known that how we think 
influences how we feel and experience life. Further, 
how we express our thoughts during conversation seems 
to be an even more powerful influence on us than our 
private, internal thoughts. As Martin Seligman points 
out, one's spoken explanatory style is “more real” 
and greatly influences whether we see ourselves 
controlled by outside circumstances or whether the 
point of control is within us. 

Note: If you'd like to check your own style, you can 
find a short self-test in Learned Optimism (1990), 
available in many public and college libraries.