Gratitude and Optimism: Crucial Components of COVID Coping

Tragic optimism acknowledges that life includes both positive moments and adversity

Source: Elias Maurer/Unsplash

A global pandemic and the desperate search for “normal” in these strange times (see "Desperately Seeking Normal" here) have taxed our individual and collective senses of well-being. Studies (e.g., Kleiman et al., 2020) demonstrate a link between the positive psychological attribute of optimism and one’s capacity for connecting to and receiving support from others during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent research has also shown that a subtype of optimism, tragic optimism, and gratitude, can significantly protect well-being during the pandemic. This post delves deeper into what tragic optimism is and looks like.

Tragic optimism

Tragic optimism (Wong, 2019) is defined as “optimism in the face of tragedy” and a stance of acceptance in spite of the tragic triad of pain, guilt, and death (Mead et al., 2021). It can be differentiated from more traditional optimism in its emphasis on hope despite distress and suffering, and therefore has relevance to our current experience of the Delta variant and as juvenile hospitalizations are spiking.

Another way of thinking about how traditional and tragic optimism differ is like this: Toxic optimism is positivity no matter what is happening, singing “Everything is coming up roses” while the people around you are experiencing various forms of mourning and loss (i.e., 675,000 fellow citizens have died of COVID, and that's a lot of loss). Toxic optimism is anti-inclusive and rather oblivious to very real struggles, whereas tragic optimism acknowledges that life comes with both good times and suffering.

Tragic optimism resonates with components of the Serenity Prayer. In fact, two items of Wong’s Life Acceptance Measure (2019), a new measure of tragic optimism, read “I accept what cannot be changed in my life” and “I have learned how to face and adapt to whatever life throws at me.”

Gratitude

Gratitude is a general orientation of appreciation for life and the people in it and has been found to contribute to well-being (Portocarrero et al., 2020). A recent study (Bono et al., 2020) showed that higher levels of gratitude early in the pandemic in the months of January to March 2020 predicted lower psychological harm and higher subjective well-being in April and May 2020.

A grateful stance is conscious of how human life is very fragile, and along with that one is more likely to appreciate people, leading to prosocial behavior (Gulliford et al., 2013; Ma et al., 2017) This makes a lot of sense, because if one is grateful and realizes the importance of inclusion, then one is more likely to reach out and make contact with them, leading to the perception (and experience) of social support.

If you’re an introvert like me, sometimes you need time to recharge your social battery before heading back out there and spending time with people. But in the end, if you are appreciative of others and occasionally show it, you will be more likely to be able to tap into social support from your network. (I just texted a friend and thanked him for touching base; it wasn’t that difficult). Some of my own research has pointed to the importance of social support to sustain our resilience (Killian, 2008).

Eyes wide open: A stance of tragic optimism takes in life's good and bad, both the pleasant and adverse.

Source: Ahtziri Lagarde/Unsplash

The proof is in the pudding. In a study with 138 participants, Mead et al. (2021) found that gratitude and tragic optimism were the only variables to contribute significantly to a model of well-being during COVID (gratitude, B = .38, tragic optimism, B = .22). This study’s results corroborate and extend past research in psychology that has found that tragic optimism and existential gratitude are crucial to coping with suffering and for aiding survival and growth during adversity (Wong, 2020).

The "three good things" exercise

How might one enhance one’s gratitude and tragic optimism? For the former, one can engage in the “three good things” activity which you can do by responding to the following prompt (Lai, 2017):

“There are many things in our lives, both large and small, that we might consider as a form of blessing. It could even be those who help us to reach our goals, or just make our lives easier with small details. If we appreciate their efforts, and notice the voluntary nature of their acts, we have a good reason to feel grateful. Please reflect and write down three things in your life that you are grateful for.”

For developing tragic optimism, you can re-evaluate the sets of expectations you carry with you into every event and encounter, and assess how much that is constraining your ability to be just present and accept life with all its wonderful moments and also some temporary limitations. Further, you can reflect on what meaning you can derive from the difficult, adverse experiences of the past year and a half as well as what you’ve learned about yourself and others and apply those learnings.

Optimism Essential Reads

Why Successful People Keep Getting More Successful

Are You a Realistic, Cruel, or Tragic Optimist?

Cultivating gratitude and tragic optimism can build and protect well-being, as well as nurture a sense of inclusiveness and consciousness of others as we move forward together.