[기사] 긍정적 사고는 도움이 별로 되지 못한다. 왜냐 현실적인 행동으로 이어지지 않아서

긍정적으로 사고하는 것이 항상 좋은 것일까

2014년 10월 28일  |  By: jasonhbae  |  경영, 과학  |  No Comment

많은 사람은 성공을 위한 열쇠는 긍정적인 사고에 있다고 생각합니다. 하지만 긍정적인 사고가 항상 좋은 결과만을 가져다주는 것은 아닙니다. 오히려 성공을 방해하는 예도 많죠.

예를 한 번 들어볼까요. 20년 전 쯤 수행된 한 연구는 체중감량프로그램에 참가한 여성이 미래의 자기 모습을 어떻게 그리는지에 따라 체중 감량 효과가 다르게 나타남을 증명한 적이 있습니다. 다만, 결과는 통념과는 반대로 나타났죠. 살이 많이 빠져서 더욱 아름다운 체형을 만들 수 있을 것이라 낙관한 사람일수록 체중 감량 효과가 오히려 적게 나타났던 겁니다. 이런 결과는 비단 체중감량프로그램에서만 나타났던 것은 아닙니다. 후속 연구에서도 좋은 학점을 기대하는 학생들, 곧 취업에 성공할 수 있을 것이라 낙관한 대학(원)생들 등 행복한 결과에 대한 환상이 강한 사람일수록 오히려 원하는 결과를 얻지 못하는 사례가 많이 발생했습니다. 긍정적인 사고가 오히려 자신의 꿈을 실현하는데 방해가 된 것입니다.

그렇다면 왜 이처럼 통념과는 다른 결과가 나타났을까요? 긍정적인 사고는 긍정적인 에너지의 원천이 아니었던가요? 문제는 긍정적인 사고가 주는 마음의 안식에 있었습니다. 통념과는 달리, 긍정적인 사고는 꿈을 실현하기 위한 적극적인 행동으로 이어지지 않았습니다. 오히려 피험자들을 현실에 더욱 안주하게 하는 결과를 낳았죠. 쉽게 목표를 달성할 수 있을 것이라 낙관한 사람들은 목표를 향해 온 힘을 다해 달려가기보다 이미 그 목표를 이룬 것처럼 행동했습니다.

몇몇 비판가들은 이와 같은 긍정적 사고의 함정을 피하기 위해서는 맞닥뜨린 장애나 시련의 어려움에 대해 ‘현실적’으로 접근할 필요가 있다고 주장합니다. 이들은 마음속에서 모든 희망을 지워내는 것이 중요하다고 역설했습니다. 하지만 이러한 방법은 너무나 가혹한 처사입니다. 효과 또한 증명되지 않았죠.

우리의 마음은 당근과 채찍을 모두 필요로 합니다. 현실주의에 바탕을 둔 긍정적인 사고나 긍정적인 사고에 바탕을 둔 현실주의가 필요하다는 것입니다. 필자가 진행했던 실험에서 가장 성과가 좋았던 사람들은 언제나 밝은 미래와 그 미래로 나아가기 위한 현실적인 제약을 동시에 생각하고 온 힘을 다하는 사람들이었습니다. 언제나 그렇듯, 균형이 가장 중요한 법입니다. (뉴욕타임즈)

MANY people think that the key to success is to cultivate and doggedly maintain an optimistic outlook. This belief in the power of positive thinking, expressed with varying degrees of sophistication, informs everything from affirmative pop anthems like Katy Perry’s “Roar” to the Mayo Clinic’s suggestion that you may be able to improve your health by eliminating “negative self-talk.”

But the truth is that positive thinking often hinders us. More than two decades ago, I conducted a studyin which I presented women enrolled in a weight-reduction program with several short, open-ended scenarios about future events — and asked them to imagine how they would fare in each one. Some of these scenarios asked the women to imagine that they had successfully completed the program; others asked them to imagine situations in which they were tempted to cheat on their diets. I then asked the women to rate how positive or negative their resulting thoughts and images were.

A year later, I checked in on these women. The results were striking: The more positively women had imagined themselves in these scenarios, thefewer pounds they had lost.

My colleagues and I have since performed many follow-up studies, observing a range of people, including children and adults; residents of different countries (the United States and Germany); and people with various kinds of wishes — college students wanting a date, hip-replacement patients hoping to get back on their feet, graduate students looking for a job, schoolchildren wishing to get good grades. In each of these studies, the results have been clear: Fantasizing about happy outcomes — about smoothly attaining your wishes — didn’t help. Indeed, it hindered people from realizing their dreams.

Why doesn’t positive thinking work the way you might assume? As my colleagues and I have discovered, dreaming about the future calms you down, measurably reducing systolic blood pressure, but it also can drain you of the energy you need to take action in pursuit of your goals.

In a 2011 study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, we asked two groups of college students to write about what lay in store for the coming week. One group was asked to imagine that the week would be great. The other group was just asked to write down any thoughts about the week that came to mind. The students who had positively fantasized reported feeling less energized than those in the control group. As we later documented, they also went on to accomplish less during that week.

Positive thinking fools our minds into perceiving that we’ve already attained our goal, slackening our readiness to pursue it.

Some critics of positive thinking have advised people to discard all happy talk and “get real” by dwelling on the challenges or obstacles. But this is too extreme a correction. Studies have shown that this strategy doesn’t work any better than entertaining positive fantasies.

What does work better is a hybrid approach that combines positive thinking with “realism.” Here’s how it works. Think of a wish. For a few minutes, imagine the wish coming true, letting your mind wander and drift where it will. Then shift gears. Spend a few more minutes imagining the obstacles that stand in the way of realizing your wish.

This simple process, which my colleagues and I call “mental contrasting,” has produced powerful results in laboratory experiments. When participants have performed mental contrasting with reasonable, potentially attainable wishes, they have come away more energized and achieved better results compared with participants who either positively fantasized or dwelt on the obstacles.

When participants have performed mental contrasting with wishes that are not reasonable or attainable, they have disengaged more from these wishes. Mental contrasting spurs us on when it makes sense to pursue a wish, and lets us abandon wishes more readily when it doesn’t, so that we can go after other, more reasonable ambitions.

In a recent study on healthy eating and exercise, we divided participants into two groups. Members of one group engaged in mental contrasting and then performed a planning exercise designed to help them overcome whatever obstacles stood in their way. Four months later, members of this group were working out twice as long each week as the control group and eating considerably more vegetables. In other studies, we found that people who engaged in mental contrasting recovered from chronic back pain better, behaved more constructively in relationships, got better grades in school and even managed stress better in the workplace.

Positive thinking is pleasurable, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for us. Like so much in life, attaining goals requires a balanced and moderate approach, neither dwelling on the downsides nor a forced jumping for joy.