It is good to be positive, but not Pollyannaish

Hayley Mills stars in the Disney 1960 movie Pollyanna. Amazon lists other actors and actresses first, but in my mind it is Hayley Mills who was the star. The story Pollyanna was written in 1913 by Eleanor H. Porter. Pollyanna looses her parents and goes to live with a cold aunt who has no love for her niece. Pollyanna was taught by her father to play a "Glad game" by her father, always looking for the best.

I enjoyed both the movie version and the book. They are both fun and entertaining.

The word Pollyanna has come to mean someone who is unrealistically optimistic: an excessively or blindly optimistic person.


People who are optimistic tend to be happier in life and to live more fulfilling lives. Martin E. P. Seligman has written several books about the benefits of having a positive attitude and how to have a positive attitude. In Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life he makes a number of interesting points. In the introduction he writes that much of psychology focuses on negatives attitudes and behaviors, but very little on how to be happy. He writes that "The skills of becoming happy turn out to be almost entirely different from the skills of not being sad, not being anxious, or not being angry."

It was interesting yesterday to come across a study that found that optimism is best in moderation. LiveScience reports that Manju Puri and David Robinson found:

"People who have a rosy outlook are more likely than others to make prudent financial decisions, but those who are extreme optimists make riskier investments and save less money than others, a new study finds."


As a parent I try to teach my daughters to be happy and be positive. I've found that most little children are pretty happy and optimistic. The goal is to help children stay optimistic as they grow up. According to this study I'll want to teach them to be optimistic, but no Pollyannaish.


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