Pessimist Hats

Pessimism has a respectable pedigree. Laurence J. Peter defined a pessimist as a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street, and a 2008 blog post was titled "A pessimist is never disappointed." There is even research behind it: Wellesley psychologist Julie Norem studies defensive pessimism, where low expectations plus a detailed imagining of what can go wrong give a sense of control. Her work puts the share of Americans who use it at roughly 30 to 35 percent, and she found that pressuring defensive pessimists to be optimistic worsened their performance. These Pessimist hats are for the family realist who expects the worst and is rarely disappointed. A PESSIMIST badge and a GLASS HALF EMPTY badge anchor the page; the sentence designs cover the dirty glass, the train at the end of the tunnel, Murphy being an optimist, and looking both ways on a one way street. HANG IN THERE IT GETS WORSE already sells on a sweatshirt, so it earns a second colorway here, and the expect-the-worst line gets one too. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Choose one for yourself, or give one to the person who brought an umbrella and was right.