Find out if your explanatory style is negative or positive.
Dragana991 / Getty Images
Your explanatory style affects your life in ways you may not realize.
It can minimize your stress response or exacerbate it.
Dragana991 / Getty Images
It can keep you feeling safe in socially dangerous situations, or endangered in relatively safe ones.
It can also motivate you when you’re faced with challenges or leave you feeling vulnerable to them.
Psychologists use the term “explanatory style” today to describe how people explain the events of their lives.
But what exactly does this all mean and where did this idea come from?
Read ahead to learn more.
Where Did the Concept of Explanatory Styles Come From?
It’s partself-talkand part self-perception, and it affects stress levels in multiple ways.
Each one can lean toward optimism or pessimism.
Is it changing across time or unchanging?
This can make a difference in how stressful something seems.
Global vs. Local
Is a stressor universal throughout your life (that is,pervasive)?
Or is it specific to a part of your life?
A good example of this is the feeling of havinggood or bad luck.
Internal vs.
External
Do you see the cause of an event as within yourself (personalization) or outside yourself?
How Explanatory Styles Relate to Your Stress Levels?
Studies also show that people with negative explanatory styles may have more trouble recovering from stressful life events.
Can People Change Their Explanatory Style?
Explanatory styles can be altered with attention and practice.
However, you will need to learn how torecognize your own cognitive distortionsand practicecognitive restructuring techniquesto change those distortions.
2015;34(4):304-321.
2017;31(2): 269-283.
2015;34(4):304-321. doi:10.1521/jscp.2015.34.4.304.
2012;22(1):49-55.