Anne Frank And Sophie Scholl

In his article, The Power of Negative Thinking, Oliver Burkeman discusses the realities behind excessive optimism and the benefits to negative thinking. Specifically, Burkeman argues that positive thinking hinders the preparation and motivation necessary to tackle actual real world problems whereas negative thinking allows for such preparation. His argument’s strengths come from his constant use of logic in regards to his evidence whether it be the “fire walkers” in the first paragraph or the opinions of Barbara Ehrenreich in the paragraph nine. In short, Burkeman does a superb job of championing the benefits of pessimism through his criticism on positive thinking.

Anne Frank, a famous victim of the Holocaust, said this “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank was once a free woman in this world. She didn’t have to go into hiding, fear getting caught, or worse, possibly dying.

Research shows that individuals are not aware that more negative things than positive influence them and listed four reasons individuals are wired to be prejudice towards the negative, bad news holds our attention more, individuals will remember more bad than good, and people will cheer for the weaker individuals (Denair,

Referred to as the negativity effect, researchers argue that individuals attribute higher values to negative information than to positive information in the overall evaluation of an entity (Fiske, 1980; Klein, 1996). Similarly, the negativity effect has also been shown to influence the perceptions or evaluations of other people (Herr, Kardes, & Kim, 1991; Wright, 1974). Prior research has argued that the negativity effect emerges as a result of positive expectations individuals have of others (Ahluwalia, 2002; Klein & Ahluwalia, 2005). For example, Klein and Ahluwalia (2005) posit that positive expectations compel individuals to underestimate the value of positive information when negative information is present. Moreover, due to disproportionate

What it does instead is to simply cause people to focus on what they lack. The pure fixation on the positive serves as a constant reminder of what we are not.

Positive and negative affects influence how individuals react to their environment and to the different situations they encounter. Stress and anxiety bring self-doubt while optimism and happiness bring self-confidence. As such, one of the sources of self-efficiency is the psychological state (A. Bandura, 1977). Furthermore, according to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, when feeling positive emotions, people view situations and problems from a wider perspective. Positive emotions can foster the development of resources leading to better coping and resilience (Fredrickson, 2013).

How easy it is to fall on a loop of negativity especially when your environment is miserable. This constant loop shapes your life in a way that you don’t actually realise how negative you become. The so-called demotivation knocks your door and harms you floods you with

It is vital that one is aware of his/her negative thoughts and beliefs because it will help in reducing its impact in one’s way of thinking. Communication is an effective way to focus on the positive events in one’s past most especially when conversing about favorable topics with his/her partner. Religious, philosophical, intellectual, scientific, artistic explorations and strengthening of interpersonal relationships allows an individual to live with a certain goal and identify his capabilities; this is done by others such as the Gift of Time. Individuals are able to shield themselves from the impact of their negative experiences such as losing the sense of hope and control once their meaning and purpose is clear to them; such is already proven

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can 't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death” (Frank 259). This was written on July 15th, 1944, by Anne Frank, an fifteen year old girl, who was arrested by the Nazis. Anne Frank, is a name known around the world for her compelling diary about growing up, living hidden away from the world, and the situations going on in the outside world during World War Two. This diary was used by Anne to record her life while in hiding with her family and friends. Anne and her diary were, and still are to this day, a link as to what life was like for the Jewish people during the time Hitler rose to power.

Positive thinking can be a useful, powerful tool to get through difficult situations that life can bring and it can also be used to help improve the overall quality of one’s life. Those that believe in the power of positive

Positive thinking, positive attitude in oneself helps to keep up a healthy lifestyle. Automatic negative thinking affects one’s personality and activates stress response by

Pessimists are more likely to associate negative events to the individual, rather than the situation, while optimists will associate positive events to the individual. The way pessimists and optimists associate events to an individual can affect how they form impressions of others. Once individuals form a negative impression, it is very hard to modify (Hargie, 2006; Mann & Ferguson, 2015). This might be because once people hear negative information, they have a very difficult time setting the information aside and listening to new evidence (Hargie & Dickson, 2004). We pay more attention to negative information, and upon hearing said information, demonstrate confirmation bias by ignoring contradictory information, even if it is positive (Hargie, 2006).

Real positive thinking works by enforcing ways of managing internal or external stress. Some of my ways of managing internal stress are by praying, thinking hopeful thoughts, listening to music, socializing with family or friends, and something I like to call “me-time”. Otherwise known as sleep. Like

Anne M. Frank wrote the quote that I chose to write about on November 19, 1942, titled Dear Kitty. As I read the quote, I tried to imagine how it had to be for a young child to witness such atrocities occurring around her as she gazed through the blackout window. The fear she must have felt as the Gestapo would come through neighborhoods with the sole mission of gathering up Jewish people. As a young teenage girl, Anne should have been experiencing unusual experiences that young people do at this age, but instead was observing the young, elderly, woman, and infants being swiftly taken away at all hours of the day from their homes.

Positive thinking can transform negative programmed behaviour into positive expectations. This is why the power of positive thinking works. We have