You are free to clench your buttocks. I didn't mean to say you're not allowed to.

I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Stephen Dubner. And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show, are there any benefits to pessimism?

Imagine the very, very, very worst scenario. The building burns down.

No one ever talks to me again.

Also, is public speaking a skill that you can learn?

I do know people who've done Toastmasters.

It doesn't seem to make them good public speakers,

but it does make them very willing and able to speak.

Angela, I'd like to ask you a question today, sent in by a listener named Ben.

All right.

And this is about something that I feel we've discussed on the show at least once or twice,

which is the power of optimism.

I think it's safe to say that you and I are both, all things considered, optimistic people.

Yes.

So in a way, Ben's question is a challenge to that, which I like. He writes,

How do you square the benefits of optimism with the harsh realities that might make any reasonable person a pessimist?

So look, I think this is a great question on a couple of levels.

I think we should unpeel it by first asking about the supposed benefits of optimism, as Ben puts it.

Why don't you first tell us what the literature has to say about that?

So optimism can be defined in different ways, but the way that is often defined

is the tendency to look for and be in a way biased by information that things are going to get better

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