Want to Do Well in Law School? Be Hopeful, Not Just Optimistic
By: Steve Grumm
That’s also good advice for living life outside of law school. The Natioanl Law Journal reports on a recent study about how law students’ dispositions can affect their performance and overall levels of satisfaction:
Which new law students will perform the best academically during their first semester and be the most satisfied with their lives? Those who are realistically hopeful, according to research into the way hope and optimism affect law student performance.
A study published in the December edition of the Journal of Research in Personality, and featured last year in the Duquesne Law Review, concluded that students who came to campus with high levels of hope got better grades and were more satisfied with their lives after completing their first semester, which tends to be the most stressful.
This distinction between optimism and hope is quite helpful, in my opinion:
The researchers distinguished hope from optimism, high levels of which boosted life satisfaction but not first semester grades.
“Optimism is the expectation that the future will be good, regardless of how this happens,” said Kevin Rand, an assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “Hope is the expectation about things you have actual control over.”
Free existential guidance from the PSLawNet Blog! You’re welcome, people.