It seems reasonable that people who exceptionally report themselves as “unlucky” tend to have actually had worse outcomes than they deserve (obviously if a trait that causes people to fail also causes them to excessively claim “I’m unlucky”, then that need not be true). But suppose it’s true; then to the extent that excessive pessimism leads to self-sabotage, just the right amount of feel-good keep-trying brainwashing will undo the damage.
As for people who are optimistic already, I see no reason to encourage them further. The “training” that succeeded in making lucky-feeling people feel even luckier probably had no further performance benefit.
In general, if you tell someone they’re great because of some trait, they’re likely to conform to that expectation or at least self-label with it.
It seems reasonable that people who exceptionally report themselves as “unlucky” tend to have actually had worse outcomes than they deserve (obviously if a trait that causes people to fail also causes them to excessively claim “I’m unlucky”, then that need not be true). But suppose it’s true; then to the extent that excessive pessimism leads to self-sabotage, just the right amount of feel-good keep-trying brainwashing will undo the damage.
As for people who are optimistic already, I see no reason to encourage them further. The “training” that succeeded in making lucky-feeling people feel even luckier probably had no further performance benefit.
In general, if you tell someone they’re great because of some trait, they’re likely to conform to that expectation or at least self-label with it.