That is, can we employ learned optimism techniques to improve our chances of winning, while still working to improve our rationality?
If you expand "rationality" to mean "improving our chances of winning", you'll notice that you just asked "can we improve our chances of winning while working to improve our improving our chances of winning?"
To which I would say, "I should certainly hope so." ;-)
That having been said, I've in the last few months decided that the direct concept of learned optimism is bunk. Or more precisely, it's based on an error in reasoning.
Specifically, reversed stupidity is not necessarily intelligence, and reversed learned helplessness is not necessarily healthy confidence. Also, just because confident people produce certain patterns in the output of their thinking, it does not necessarily mean that mimicking those outputs will produce the same internal states.
Yes, Seligman has some research on those points. However, his training methods call for essentially rote repetition of thought disputation until something "clicks" for you; AFAICT, there is no way to predict just how much disputation you will have to do in order to actually change your inner experience. In effect, there is a faith-based exhortation that sufficient repetition will bring about changes.
In contrast, I've found that by focusing on removing learned helplessness instead, the click to positivity is natural. I (and others) automatically begin seeing the positives in an area of action that was previously restricted. And instead of having to continually have the negative thoughts arise in order to be disputed, getting rid of the helplessness simply switches off the negative thoughts in that context, from that point forward.
I contend, therefore, that "learned optimism" is a nonentity, as optimism and confidence are the natural state. Helplessness can be learned and unlearned, and must be unlearned in order to experience actual optimism or confidence. Practicing optimism skills may eventually lead you to stumble on an unlearning of some bits of your helplessness, or not. But directing your attention to identifying and removing the specific bits of helplessness pays off in a much more predictable and permanent fashion.
(tl;dr: optimism good, learned optimism conceptually flawed, eliminate learned helplessness ftw.)
Ever wonder something like, "I know it's bad for me that I lost my job, but I actually feel happy about it... is that rational?"
What could a question like that mean? There is a divisive ambiguity here that really messes people up. A feeling as an experience is neither rational nor irrational. It's like asking how ethical a shade of purple is. The point is that a feeling must be framed as a behavior or a statement to ask whether it is rational, and which one matters heaps and loads to the answer.
If you think of the happiness as a behavior, something that you're doing, then the question is secretly asking about instrumental rationality: whether you're applying your beliefs correctly to attain your values. In our opening example, the question becomes "Does feeling happy serve my values?", or simply "Do I value feeling happy?". If you're almost anyone, the answer is probably "yes".
If you think of the happiness as a statement or instruction that says "Your values are being served", which can be true/false and justified/unjustified, then the question is really about epistemic rationality, and asks: "Am I justified to believe my values are being served?". If "it's bad for me" means "no", then "no".
Because of this ambiguity, although it can make sense to say "I'm happy" to indicate "my values are being served", I propose that in the interest of epistemic hygiene it's worth being more specific. Conflating feelings-as-behaviors with feelings-as-statements inflicts a great deal of pondering and confusion about whether feelings are rational (also precipitated by Hollywood), and to make matters worse, each of these similes has only limited validity:
1) A feeling is a behavior only insofar as you have control over it. This is something perhaps to strive for, but which certainly varies in feasibility. If someone carefully injects you with dopamine at a funeral, you might feel happy. That doesn't mean you've made an instrumentally irrational choice. 2) A feeling is a statement only insofar as it has a given interpretation. In my opening example, the happiness might rather signify "There's nothing you can do about this so you can relax and move on." This might be clarified on reflection, and if the statement isn't a rational one, you might consider retraining your feeling to offer more rational suggestions. But then, as with any statement, your epistemic rationality hinges on whether you believe it, not on how you feel. On the other hand, it is conceivable that even after introspection reveals the mechanism of a feeling, it still does not present itself as a statement. So sometimes the question "Is this feeling rational?" just isn't applicable, but greater self control/awareness makes your feelings more often like behaviors/statements to be assessed as "rational." For the ticklement of your visual cortex, the following table displays 15 scenario types (all of which can really happen), and what the scenario means for your instrumental/epistemic rationality (which is sometimes nothing: "--"). If you like, try thinking of an example scenario for the plausibility of each cell:Your instrumental/epistemic rationality with respect to a feeling:
You haven't interpreted the feeling as a statement
You've interpreted the feeling as a statement
The statement is justified
The statement is unjustified
You believe it
You don't believe it
You believe it
You don't believe it
You can't (yet) control the feeling
--/yes
--/no
--/no
--/yes
You can control the feeling
You like (value) the feeling
yes/--
yes/yes
yes/no
yes/no
yes/yes
You dislike (devalue) the feeling
no/--
no/yes
no/no
no/no
no/yes
What's the point? Understanding your feelings means you can put them to better use. For one thing, you don't have to turn off a good feeling just because it makes a bad suggestion, as long as you can ignore the suggestion: if you lose your job, go ahead and be happy about it, just make sure you behave appropriately and keep looking for a new one. Likewise, you're not obliged to feel a "smart" feeling that you don't like, as long as you're smart enough to remember what good advice it might have given you: if you're worried about failing your exams, say "Thanks Worry, good idea, I'll go study. Okay, I'm studying now, you've done your part, you can leave me alone for a while!" Don't forget, in addition to communicating with the unconscious about epistemic issues, your feelings can be used for all sorts of other things, like energetic motivation, health benefits, and watching Avatar. And failing just one of these purposes doesn't entirely preclude the others, as long as you can keep them effectively separate... feeling like blue people are real can be highly advisable at times.