Positive psychology is a branch of social science which focuses on understanding and promoting the trait of optimism. A bedrock notion of positive psychology is that whether one is an optimist or pessimist is determined by one's explanatory style, the way the mind explains bad things which happen to us. Explanatory style has three dimensions: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. Optimists tend to explain bad events as being temporary, “one-off’s” caused by particular circumstances beyond his or her control. Pessimists tend to explain bad events as ongoing, indicative of generalized problems, and they blame themselves. Psychohistory is the psychological study of historical figures based on their writings, recorded statements, and biographical information. Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents (1929) may be the first major work in psychohistory. Subsequent writings in the field were speculative and psychoanalytical. In "Pessimistic...(Read Full Article)