Feeling sorry for oneself every now and again is common, as every now again circumstances or situations fall against us and we feel the need to moan about it. Such expressions of discomfort or disappointment are normally directed at others and to some extent, this may be a good idea, as in some circumstances those around us may be able to help in some way. But what about if this occasional tendency starts to become more of a regular occurrence? Everyone has friends who are forever wearing their upset hearts on their sleeves on facebook, or have colleagues they avoid getting stuck in a conversation with for the sake of losing the will to live. At certain periods in life we may even be guilty of it ourselves – life seems so unfair at times.
However, over the last 50 years or so medicine, poverty and life expectancy have all improved dramatically. Furthermore, for the majority of us, life is very kind – we are born into middle class backgrounds, we are well educated and rarely face real adversity in the grand scheme of things. This blog first discusses some literature that suggests a “poor me” mentality of dwelling on our slights is likely to be a bad idea and then starts to think about what factors might be contributing to the 'poor me' mindset and how we might combat succumbing to it too often.
So why is the 'poor me' mentality a bad thing? I think it is bad on many levels. Perhaps most importantly, it may be bad for our well being. An extremely large collection of literature that has relevance to the 'poor me' mentality we will discuss is the psychological effects of 'rumination'. Rumination can be described as a tendency to focus ones thought on aspects of ones life that are distressing and to do so in a fairly repetitive manner. Furthermore, such thinking isn't done in a way that is conducive to problem solving, it is more akin to becoming fixated on the problem and why it is bad, rather than doing something about.
In a large scale review Noelen-Hoeksema et al. (2008) discuss a number of problems with this 'mind set'. Studies show that rumination can cause depressed mood and is frequently shown to be associated with the onset of depression. Furthermore, it predicts the onset of a number of other psychological problems and is commonly associated with a lower sense of satisfaction with life. In addition, there is some suggestion that ruminating about past slights and problems may be problematic as it serves to 'rehearse' these memories, so that in the future we continue to view ourselves as hard done by in life.
An interesting study by Baumeister and colleagues (1990) can help in starting to shed some light on why it seems so natural for us to feel our circumstances are worse than they are. The researchers asked participants to recall occasions when they had been angered by someone else (victim narrative) or angered someone else (perpetrator narrative) and describe the story behind each event. The researchers then had judges blindly rate the descriptions for several qualities, including amongst others; how negative the consequences of the act were, how immoral the act was and whether it was unavoidable. As you might expect, when participants described an act that was perpetrated against them (victim), the content was very different to when they themselves committed that act against another. When they fell foul of the act , participants tended to think that the consequences of it were much worse. Furthermore, they judged the act to be more immoral and deliberately hurtful, compared to when they were the force behind the act of annoyance (perpetrator).
This suggests that we might be biased in our interpretation of personal injustice, in a way that results in us overplaying the importance and significance of bad things that happen to us. When bad things happen to us (someone angering us) we can believe it is much worse than when it is happening to someone else (us annoying someone else). Yet, if everybody is thinking like this, then somebody must be wrong. What this might result in is us starting to see ourselves as worse off than others, when we may well not be.
A further study by Jackson et al. (2006) builds on this idea of self vs other differences. Amongst other tasks, in this study participants viewed images of individuals in painful or non painful situations and then imagined how much pain would be experienced from one of two perspectives; either if it were themselves experiencing the pain (self condition) or another person (other condition). When individuals imagined themselves in the scenario they imagined a greater amount of pain would be experienced than if it were someone else. Thus, it is not only social injustice that we view in a biased way, but pain too. It appears as though we might have a tendency to believe the world is a worse off and more painful place for ourselves than others around us.
Another potential reason why we can find ourselves moaning and stuck in self pity is a tendency for us to believe in a 'just world', otherwise known as the 'just world belief hypothesis', suggested by Lerner & Miller (1978). Through the use of experimental studies and observations, there is fairly strong evidence that we tend to believe that the world is fundamentally 'just' and fair. “What goes around comes around”. People get what they deserve, and so forth. Thus, if a set of circumstances arise that are detrimental to ourselves then this can come as quite a shock. 'How could something like this happen to somebody like me”? “I don't deserve this”. We struggle to come to terms with what feels like injustice (i.e. someone dents our car, or our mail is lost in the post). It is understandable if it happens to others, 'but me”? “I definitely don't deserve this.” Yet, injustices happen. Perhaps what would be more realistic is to recognise and remind oneself that the world doesn't balance itself out perfectly, sometimes bad things happen to undeserving people. Dwelling on seemingly unjust circumstances that we can do little about is probably best avoided. Bad things do happen, whether we deserve it or not.
A final factor that may mak
e us feel let down by life is how we compare ourselves to others in the world. A slightly depressing, but realistic thought is the realisation that there is always likely to be people 'above us' in the world. Earning more, working more convenient hours, whose work is more highly regard by others, in better physical shape, more attractive, a quicker runner – the list could go on forever. Comparing oneself to those 'above us' may leave one feeling disappointed. What perhaps might be more positive is to make comparisons in the opposite direction; downwards. Realising there are others in less positive situations than us and what we possess is pretty good compared to others might perhaps make the world seem like a better place. We are lucky.
e us feel let down by life is how we compare ourselves to others in the world. A slightly depressing, but realistic thought is the realisation that there is always likely to be people 'above us' in the world. Earning more, working more convenient hours, whose work is more highly regard by others, in better physical shape, more attractive, a quicker runner – the list could go on forever. Comparing oneself to those 'above us' may leave one feeling disappointed. What perhaps might be more positive is to make comparisons in the opposite direction; downwards. Realising there are others in less positive situations than us and what we possess is pretty good compared to others might perhaps make the world seem like a better place. We are lucky.
For example, in a study by Buunk et al. (2001) the researchers were examining how adjusting how people compare themselves to others might effect relationship satisfaction. Participants either wrote down reasons why they believed there relationship was better than others (downward comparisons) or just listed reasons why there relationship was good (control condition). The researchers found that comparing oneself to others had a striking effect on satisfaction, with these participants rating their relationship satisfaction far higher than the other group. One explanation as to why we see this effect is that by comparing ourselves to others who haven't quite got what we have, we adjust our bench mark for what we expect a 'good' relationship to be.
The question that arises from findings of downward comparisons is, under what circumstances upward comparisons might actually be good for us. In some circumstances they may well be – setting targets and goals based on what others have achieved may well be motivational and useful; increasing productivity at work or attempting to improve a running time. Yet, realising there are many who don't quite have what we do, as well as those 'above' us, who have more, would seem a healthy stance that may put our slights and grievances with life into some perspective. Further research, here - http://psychologyshared.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-can-make-me-feel-good.html suggests that a more gratuitous attitude may be rewarding in the long term too.
Finally, perhaps we should also consider taking our lives slightly less seriously. Although we sometimes do have trials and tribulations in life, one wonders whether at times our own sense of self importance (or need for a dramatic narrative to life) can result in us making bigger dramas out of inconveniences than we really need to. Indeed, there may almost be a slight perverse enjoyment of finding ourselves with reason to complain, as to some extent, it may provide us with moments of significance amongst otherwise dull days. This must at least explain the joy of self importance elderly neighbours exude when complaining and moaning about the appearance of a 7 or 8 yr olds boys football on their lawn once or twice a week.
Letting go and accepting unjust circumstances rather than focusing too much on slights and inconveniences may be wise in life. The majority of annoyances and disappointments seem trivial with time and when we think about what else is going rather well.
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