Each day of your life is filled with a certain degree of uncertainty. You’re waiting to find out if your friend is going to text you back after you send a silly message complete with your favorite emoticons. Maybe, you worry, your friend will find this offensive. Other daily events take on greater magnitude. You’ve applied for a new position, and it’s now the deadline for the decision to be announced. Bracing yourself for disappointment, you let your mind drift to worst-case scenarios.

Because the future is always uncertain, your ability to cope with possible disappointment would seem like a good quality to develop. Although you’ve come to believe the maxim “Expect the worst and hope for the best,” you wonder if this is really the best strategy. Wouldn’t it be better to enjoy each moment that brings you closer to an outcome rather than worry all the time?

According to a major new study by University of Miami’s William Villano and colleagues (2024), bracing consists of a pessimistic and “preemptive response to an uncertain, potentially disappointing outcome.” This happens because “when people lower their expectations, the outcome is less likely to be worse than their new expectations.” The tendency of expectations to drift in a negative direction, though, could lead people to become worse at predicting the future over a long-term basis. You’ll be more, not less, likely to be surprised when good—or bad—outcomes actually occur.

Another problem with bracing yourself for the worst is that it reinforces the tendency to engage in “magical thinking,” or wrongly believing that your expectations........

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