Optimism and self-mastery predict more rapid disengagement from unsolvabletasks in the presence of alternatives

Do favorable beliefs about the self the future, and one's degree of control over events compromise one's ability to recognize what one cannot accompli sh ? Previous studies indicating that people with favorable self-beliefs sp end more rime on unsolvable tasks typically examined persistence with respe ct to a single unsolvable task or set of tasks. To test whether such seemin gly maladaptive persistence would occur in the presence of alternative task s, we varied whether an initial set of seven unsolvable anagrams was follow ed by 14 solvable anagrams and examined problem-solving efforts among colle ge students (N = 96) given a 20-min time limit. In the absence of alternati ves, most participants worked on the unsolvable trials until the end of the time limit; however; in the presence of alternatives, participants high in optimism or self-mastery beliefs who were not allowed to return to previou s trials disengaged from the unsolvable anagrams nearly 4 min sooner than p articipants low in such beliefs. Additionally, optimists tended to outperfo rm participants low in optimism on the subsequent solvable trials when thes e trials were said to test an aspect of verbal intelligence different from the initial set. These results suggest that people high in optimism and sel f-mastery are able to disengage from unsolvable tasks in order to allocate effort to solvable tasks. Implications for the study of nonproductive persi stence, the adaptiveness of positive beliefs, and the modification of copin g efforts are discussed.