Ive decided to tweak my capstone to include low self-esteem since many of the inner

monologue resources arent adequate enough for my research. While some of the resources that I
do have are very telling, there are others that are examining things that I am not really looking
into. Because of this, I have set my goal of continuing to research not only pessimism, but I need
to include sources that may reference self-esteem when I wouldve gotten rid of the article
before. I also have the sub-goal to start synthesizing some of my sources into a coherent
argument. Not all of my sources mention both of my ideas, but I have enough ideas that I could
start synthesizing ideas together to talk about correlations between my ideas.
Since meeting with Mr. Conway after my last memo, my essential question has been
solidified, but I feel as though I need to tweak it based on my above paragraph. My essential
question is How can pessimism and negative self-talk be changed to lead a more optimistic
view of society and Id like to continue focusing on changing pessimism and how you can limit
or change inner monologues/self-esteem in order to create an optimistic viewpoint.
Many of the articles that I have found point to situational pessimism. For example,
Robinson-Whelen found in her experiment that those who were apart of the care-taker group
were more likely to suffer from pessimistic tendencies, even if they had no such tendencies
before starting to care for their significant other. Also, Shepperd found in his study that those that
suffered from self-esteem issues were more likely to change their test score based on pessimistic
tendencies. As time grew closer to their exam grade reveal, those with low self-esteem continued
to change their score negatively, continuing to drive the point home that pessimism can be a
result of other environmental and psychological factors. Outside of that one correlation, I havent
really found correlations in other article, but within the next week, I am hoping to find more
including ones between self-esteem or negative inner monologues.
While I havent really found specific evidence on changing mindset at the current
moment, I have found some things that might be useful as to the root cause of pessimism. For
example, Shepperd seems to point to the idea that pessimism seems to be a result of the
environment. In his experiment, as time grew closer to the reveal of tests scores, people tended to
negatively change their idea about their score. Also, Robinson-Whelen seems to point to the
same idea that pessimism forms as a result of situations or environment. In his study, he seems to
find that those who were taking care of an individual in advanced age were more likely to fit into
pessimist tendencies. Those that were not taking care of individuals in advanced age were more
likely to have an optimistic view of society. I think these two ideas might fit well into my paper
when I introduce the idea of pessimism. I think I would discuss what pessimism is and from
there talk about the root causes of pessimism and whether it is possible to keep out of a fixed
mindset that might keep someone in a pessimistic view.
By the next memo, I need to continue to look into self-esteem. From what Ive found, I
think there is something to self-esteem and pessimism, but Im still hard pressed to find a
correlation between negative inner monologues and pessimism. I also need to continue to look
into pessimism and some of the types that researchers focus, Im starting to come to a conclusion
that pessimism is situational and people that cant break past the situation are stuck in a
pessimistic mindset. Id like to investigate the negative effects of not being able to break this
situational pessimism and what happens if the situation is a long lasting situation (what might
that do for someone, create deeper feelings of pessimism or other pessimistic thoughts).