The Other Side of Optimism: High Expectations and the Rejection of Status Quo Politics

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0190-9320/00/0300-0071$18.00/0 Q 2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation

Political Behavior, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2000

THE OTHER SIDE OF OPTIMISM:High Expectations and the Rejection ofStatus Quo Politics

David Niven

Why are options that suggest a rejection of status quo politics popular today? This

study suggests that an overlooked and important source of disappointment in govern-

ment is the unrealistically optimistic expectations many Americans hold. At the sur-

face it seems almost paradoxical: Americans generally tend to be quite optimistic,

while at the same time they are negative and cynical about politics. This research

suggests that because strong optimists have such high expectations, they react to

political disappointments much more negatively than do those who have more mod-

est expectations, thus reducing trust in government and belief in the system. The

disappointed optimist seeks remedies for their disappointment, and in so doing, em-

braces the political unknown, whether embodied in an inexperienced, ideologically

vague political leader such as Colin Powell, a third political party, or the mystery

men and women who would be called into service after term limits remove incum-

bents from office.

Trust in government has received concerned attention for decades becausesince the 1970s most Americans have been unwilling to express confidence intheir government and its leaders (Miller, 1974; Parker, 1989; Rosenstone andHansen, 1993; Patterson, 1994).1 Cappella and Jamieson argue that “healthyskepticism about politics has become pervasive cynicism. The presumption oftrust and cooperation has been replaced by that of mistrust and exploitation”(1996, p. 84).

Why is there so little trust? This research explores the link between opti-mism about personal life circumstances and cynicism about our current poli-tics and political leaders, and suggests that one reason we are so unsatisfied isthat we have such optimistic expectations about outcomes that affect us.When those expectations are not met, we lose confidence in politics and seeksystem altering remedies.

David Niven, Department of Political Science, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.

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Three such remedies that have achieved impressive popularity are calls forterm limits on Congress, support for a third political party, and the clamoringfor Colin Powell. All three represent a rejection of the political status quo. Allthree measures, at bottom, suggest a blanket dissatisfaction with current po-litical leaders and an expression of support for those outside the politicalsystem. All three measures thus embrace essentially unknown political enti-ties over the currently available range of politicians.

THE TRUST DEFICIT

A quarter century ago, political scientist Arthur Miller sounded the alarmover the lack of trust Americans had in their government: “A democraticpolitical system cannot survive for long without the support of a majority ofits citizens. When such support wanes, underlying discontent is the necessaryresult, and the potential for revolutionary alteration of the political and socialsystem is enhanced” (1974, p. 951). President Jimmy Carter said in a tele-vised address to the nation (July 15, 1979) that lack of trust in governmentrepresents “a fundamental threat to American democracy . . . a crisis of confi-dence . . . that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our nationalwill. . . . the gap between our citizens and our government has never been sowide. . . .”

While declining trust has certainly not had revolutionary effects, more sub-tle, but nevertheless important direct and indirect consequences of distrusthave been identified. Hetherington (1998; 1999) finds that distrustful votersare particularly likely to disapprove of the job the president is doing and tovote against the incumbent party in presidential elections.2 As a result, recentdecades have witnessed extraordinary turnover in presidential elections in-stead of the generations of stability that had been more typical (Hetherington,1999).

This instability comes with a serious price attached because, as Kingdon(1984), Bennett (1996) and others have suggested, big ideas in governmentrequire great investments of time. Kingdon (1984) argues that the gestationperiod of major legislative initiatives exceeds the span of one presidentialterm. In addition to the specter of serving only one term, unpopular presi-dents also face greater opposition in Congress during their administrations(Ostrom and Simon, 1985). Thus, declining trust affords presidents both lesstime in office and less influence during that time.

To the extent distrust encourages us to cycle through leaders and ignoretheir agendas, we run the risk of turning presidents out of office before theycan address our needs. Because they lack the political capital to sell a planwith long-term implications (Neustadt, 1990), leaders in a distrustful time are

HIGH EXPECTATIONS AND REJECTION OF STATUS QUO POLITICS 73

more apt to settle for the simple and pleasing over the complicated and nec-essary.

Indulging our whims and thinking for the short term, of course, conflictwith the Constitution’s design of our system. Indeed, lack of political trust canresult in direct calls for Constitution subverting action, as Parker (1994) notesthat 75% of the respondents in a 1993 poll said members of Congress shouldbe required to vote in accordance with American public opinion on all majorissues.

The ultimate danger of lack of trust is that it is much more than an injuryto our system: It is a virus that spreads and grows and feeds on itself. Lack ofresponsive action feeds a conclusion that there are no meaningful choices—which in turn reduces trust even further. Moreover, without trust, govern-ment proposals are often treated merely as manipulative efforts to gain politi-cal victory, and not as honest efforts to achieve good policy (Cappella andJamieson, 1996), making it nearly impossible for our leaders to ameliorate thistrust deficit with their actions. Thus without trust, governing grows progres-sively harder and more removed from its intended design (Gamson, 1968;Newland, 1991).

To be clear, American distrust and dissatisfaction is not aimed at one politi-cian or one political entity, it is instead a rather diffuse disappointment seem-ingly directed at any target associated with the national government (Craig,1993). While images of militia members wreaking havoc in the AmericanWest are an all too real and tragic consequence of this trend among radicalextremists, the lack of confidence in government has implications thatstrongly influence the political opinions of the average American citizen (forexample, see Zilber, 1996). To wit, Americans are increasingly supportingterm limits for Congress, inexperienced candidates for president, and callingfor new political parties (The Gallup Poll, 1986–1996), the common link be-ing a rejection of the system as it exists and an embracing of something other,whether that be an unspecified congressional candidate, or an end to two-party politics, or an unknown political quantity such as Colin Powell.

While researchers have pointed to cynicism concerning government as apredictor of support for system altering ideas, Southwell (1995), Parker(1989), and Karp (1995) all conclude that much more attention needs to begiven to the examination of the origins of this cynicism and mistrust. A num-ber of scholars have linked mistrust to dissatisfaction with the current presi-dent and congress (Citrin and Green, 1986; Feldman, 1983) and their policies(Erber and Lau, 1990), but this process is complicated by the finding thattrust’s effect on presidential approval is even greater than the effect of ap-proval on trust (Hetherington, 1998). Moreover, the search for sources thatunderlie the cycle of trust and approval has often proved frustrating as studieshave failed to find a consistent link between the rejection of status quo poli-

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tics and the usual suspects of political prediction—including gender, race,income, education, age, partisanship, and ideology (House and Mason, 1975;Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 1995; Bennett and Bennett, 1990; Craig, 1993;Niven, 1998).

OPTIMISM AS VILLAIN

In contrast to those who see distrust as a product of presidential or con-gressional malfeasance, Craig (1993) argues that negative feelings toward ourgovernment do not begin with the failings of the government. Instead, theyoriginate in the expectations of the citizens. Thus, an unexplored but poten-tially potent factor in political cynicism may exist in the role of personal opti-mism.

Americans, numerous studies find, are an optimistic people (for example,Weinstein, 1980; Regan et al., 1995). Americans are so optimistic, in fact, thatpsychologists have labeled it an optimism bias. In short, most Americansthink they are more likely than the average person to enjoy positive futureevents—and less likely than the average person to suffer from negative out-comes. In a variety of categories encompassing success in their occupationsand personal lives, average Americans think they have an above averagechance of having positive results occur for them (Weinstein, 1980; Regan etal., 1995). Concomitantly, negative results such as being fired, getting di-vorced, or being a victim of crime, are thought by the average American tohave a less likely than average chance of happening to them (Regan et al.,1995).

In the short term, such strong optimism is very useful as it encourages aperson to expect success and to avoid focusing on distracting and dishearten-ing negative information (Spencer and Norem, 1996; Regan et al., 1995).However, such expectations are not without a pernicious side effect. Stronglyoptimistic people, by definition, expect positive outcomes. Thus, positive out-comes are not particularly noteworthy. Negative outcomes, conversely, be-come much more upsetting than they would be in the absence of optimismbecause they are so jarringly unexpected.

One outgrowth of optimism is the relative importance afforded positive andnegative information. In psychological work (Hamilton and Zanna, 1972;Beigel, 1973; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) and in political research (Lau,1982; Mueller, 1973; Bloom and Price, 1975; Kernell, 1977), negative infor-mation appears to have more weight in people’s thinking than comparablepositive information in making evaluations. Mueller (1973) and Bloom andPrice (1975) find incumbents punished for economic downturns but not re-warded for equivalent economic improvement. Kernell (1977) and Lau (1982)conclude that people who have negative predispositions toward the president


are more likely to act—by voting against the president’s party—than thosewith positive predispositions. Lau (1982) further finds that individual piecesof negative information tend to have more influence in a voter’s evaluation ofa leader than individual pieces of positive information.

Why is negative information more powerful? Most of us, most of the time,live in a positive world with regard to our opinions on our jobs, neighbor-hoods, and our lives as a whole (Sears, 1983). Against this positive backdrop,negative outcomes stand out (Lau, 1985). Thus, the contrast between ourstrongly optimistic, positive lives, and negative political events demands atten-tion, where simultaneously positive political information is less noteworthy(Lau, 1985). As such, Miller (1974), Citrin and Green (1986), and Craig(1993) argue that high expectations undermine confidence in our leaders andin government.

In addition to lower satisfaction born of optimism, optimistic thinking hasalso been linked to another politically significant tendency. Those who areextremely optimistic are more likely to favor bold, risky, aggressive actions(Satterfield and Seligman, 1994). If you think things will work out for you,why not pursue drastic actions to hasten success? Realists or pessimists, how-ever, given their lower expectations, tend toward a more cautious, passivepath.

HYPOTHESES AND METHODS

Two main hypotheses are advanced and will be explored further: (1) Opti-mists will have less trust in government, and (2) optimists will offer greatersupport to unpredictable changes in government, that is, support for politicalunknowns.

The major difficulty in studying the political implications of optimism isthat most studies of optimism have been conducted with student samples (forexample, Regan et al., 1995; Weinstein, 1980; Spencer and Norem, 1996;Shepperd et al., 1996). As Sears (1986) has cautioned, the differences be-tween students and the larger adult population must give one pause in apply-ing the findings. However, turning to representative national surveys (such asthe National Election Studies) is also problematic because such surveys lackdetailed optimism measures.

To combat this problem, this study uses a survey conducted in the summerof 1997 with a sample of jurors from the courts of two central New Jerseycounties.3 While jurors have been used as a sample in a number of politicalscience studies (for example, Terkildsen, 1993), such samples are representa-tive only of the population from which the jury pool was drawn. Nevertheless,as Sears (1986) has argued, establishing at minimum a heterogenous group ofrespondents affords much greater legitimacy compared to samples drawn ex-

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clusively from more readily available and widely used subjects, such as collegestudents.

When jurors arrived and waited for their assignment, they were asked ifthey were willing to fill out a political survey. Jurors were told that it wasoptional, anonymous, and would take them about five minutes. Approximately82% agreed to participate.

Following the general procedures of previous studies on optimism (such asRegan et al., 1995), participants were asked to rate the likelihood of theirexperiencing a series of events in comparison with other people their age.Specifically they were asked, “For the following list of life events, please tellus whether you think, in your life, you have, or have had, an above average,average, or below average chance of experiencing these outcomes comparedto other people your age.” To guard against response set bias, the list includesboth positive and negative life events, thus the optimistic response is “aboveaverage” on half the measures, and “below average” on the other half.

Participants were then asked a series of questions based on the wording ofthe trust measures developed by the National Elections Studies. Respondentswere also asked whether they favored term limits for Congress, whether theyfavored the creation of an unnamed third political party, and for their ratingof Colin Powell. Finally, a number of standard political indicators (partisan-ship, ideology) as well as demographic questions were included in the survey.Except for the optimism measure, the wording of all questions was based onitems in the 1996 National Election Study (question wording is available inthe appendix). To mitigate any question order effects, the three main sectionsof the survey (optimism measures, trust measures, and reactions to Powell/Parties/Term Limits) were actually varied in order so that each was the firstsection asked of one-third of the participants.

RESULTS

To say the respondents are an optimistic lot is to understate the case. Aquick glance at Table 1 shows that every prediction about future life eventsgarnered an optimistic response from a majority of the subjects. In otherwords, for every positive outcome, the average respondent concluded thatthey had an above average chance of experiencing the event, and for everynegative outcome, the average respondent concluded that they had a belowaverage chance of experiencing the event.

Using a point system that awards 1 point for every optimistic prediction, 0points for every average chance prediction, and 11 point for pessimistic pre-dictions, produces a positive overall score (on the ten predictions) for almostevery respondent. In fact, when the respondents are categorized by quartiles


TABLE 1. Responses to Optimism Measures

% with Positive Expectation

Never getting divorced 93Being fired from your job 98Be the victim of a crime 60Win an award 65Have an auto accident 58Get a great job or a promotion 81Live past 80 years of age 79Suffer an illness in the near future 94Get mentioned in the newspaper for something good

you did 61Buy an unreliable car 97

N 4 200.Cell entries represent the percentage answering above average to positive events and below

average to negative events.

for their optimism score, the lowest scoring quartile has twice as many opti-mistic predictions as pessimistic predictions. The typical member of the low-est scoring quartile was optimistic about 6 of the 10 predictions, pessimisticabout 3, and said they had an average chance on two predictions. More star-tling, pessimism was virtually absent from those placing in the three higherquartiles (Table 2).

More to the point, though, Figure 1 shows that the more optimistic therespondent, the less enthusiastic they are about government. The extremelyoptimistic quartile is more likely to believe you can trust the government“only some” or “none” of the time, more likely to believe government is runby a few big interests, and that quite a few people in government arecrooked. Using Tau b, the relationship between individuals’ optimism scoresand their responses to these trust measures is statistically significant

TABLE 2. Optimism Quartile Scores

QuartileOptimisticPredictions

PessimisticPredictions

AveragePredictions Score

1 5.9 2.9 2.2 32 7.1 1.5 1.4 5.63 7.8 1.1 .9 6.74 8.9 .5 .6 8.4

N 4 200.Cell entries represent mean score of each 50 person quartile.

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FIG. 1. Political trust by optimism. Note: Relationship between individual optimismscore and measures: Tau b 4 1.38 for trust government most of the time, Taub 4 1.31 for government run for the benefit of all, and Tau b 4 1.42 for few ingovernment are crooked.


TABLE 3. Determinants of Trust in Government

B

Gender .07*Race .04Education .01Income 1.01Age .01*Ideology 1.01Partisanship 1.01Strength of Partisanship 1.01*Optimism 1.03*Constant 1.13

R2 .24

N 4 200.OLS Regression. Cell entries are unstandardized coefficients. Dependent variable is a three

point scale (1 4 lowest trust, 3 4 highest trust).*p , .05.

(p , .001) for each variable. Considering the results in Figure 1, the morepersonally optimistic, the more cynical one is likely to be about government.

Moreover, the bivariate relationship observed in Figure 1 maintains itsstrength in an OLS regression. The regression utilizes the three measures oftrust from the survey, with responses combined into a three-point scale as thedependent variable (1 4 lowest trust, 3 4 highest trust; see appendix for de-tails). Included as independent variables are the demographic measures avail-able (gender, race, age, education, and income) as well as ideology, partisan-ship, strength of partisanship (a range from “strong Republican or Democrat”to Independent), and optimism. Four variables emerge as statistically signifi-cant from the model: gender, age, strength of partisanship, and optimism.Optimism’s potential effect is quite large, as the most optimistic are predictedto be almost .6 less trusting than the least optimistic—which represents al-most one-third of the scale.

Previous research suggests optimists not only have a greater capacity to bedisappointed in outcomes that do not please them, but that they also showgreater predilection for risk in the pursuit of desirable outcomes (Satterfieldand Seligman, 1994). Thus, it is not terribly surprising that strongly optimisticrespondents turn out to give greater support to radical change in the form ofsupport for unknown political quantities. Specifically, those in the top quartileon optimism are 30 points (on a 100-point feeling thermometer scale) moreenthusiastic about the politically untested Colin Powell than those in the bot-tom quartile, with the extreme optimists offering Powell nearly stratospheric

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FIG. 2. Support for political unknowns by optimism. Note: Relationship between indi-vidual optimism score and measures: r 4 .39 for Colin Powell, Tau b 4 .58 for sup-port for third party, and Tau b 4 .51 for support for term limits.

enthusiasm. This top quartile meanwhile is 29% more supportive of the needfor an unnamed third political party, and 25% more supportive of a 12-yearterm limit on Congress than those in the lowest quartile of optimism scores.

What links these three positions—support for term limits, a third party,


and Colin Powell—is that they reflect a preference for the unknown quantityin politics over the known quantity. Colin Powell has never held office and hispositions on most issues are largely a mystery, yet he is overwhelmingly popu-lar among strong optimists. Optimists desire an unknown new party withoutknowing the specifics of its policies or the nature of its leaders. Finally, tre-mendous support for 12-year term limits on Congress implies the belief thatthe nameless, faceless, completely unknown, but new, future members ofCongress are inherently better than the known quantities that currently serve.The statistical significance of optimism’s relationship with these three mea-sures is quite strong, with a Tau b of .51 for optimism and term limits, .58 foroptimism and third party, and a correlation of .39 for optimism and rating ofColin Powell.

As interesting as what links these positions is what does not link them:respondents’ education, gender, income, race, age, ideology, partisanship (ex-pressed either as a range from Strong Democrat to Strong Republican, or as arange from strong supporter of either party to Independent) and politicaltrust. Logistic regressions, used to estimate the determinants of dichotomousdependent variables shown in Table 4, reveal that only political trust andoptimism have a significant and consistent directional effect on both supportfor term limits and support for a third party. However, only one of thesemeasures also has a significant effect in an OLS regression on support forColin Powell: optimism. Optimism has a sizable effect on each of the threedependent variables, and consistently buoys the political unknown as it in-creases support for term limits, third parties, and Colin Powell. The modelsestimate that the top of the range of optimism offers 10% more support tothe need for a third party, 12% more support to term limits, and a 14-pointhigher rating for Colin Powell.4

CONCLUSION

The clamoring for departures from our political system (embodied in sup-port for term limits, Colin Powell, and rejection of our two parties) has be-come prominent in the United States. This study advances the notion that acommon link between these positions is optimism.

Strongly optimistic Americans have high expectations for their lives andtheir world, and those expectations are not being met by our politics. First,extreme optimists are more likely to express distrust of government. Ulti-mately, extreme optimists are more inclined to support Colin Powell, termlimits, and a third party, presumably as an expression of their lack of satisfac-tion with the system and its leaders and their belief that something bettermust exist.

These findings underscore Craig’s (1993) conclusion that more than any act

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TABLE 4. Determinants of Support for a Third Party and Term Limits

Third Party Term Limits

Gender 1.25 1.42Race 1.99* 1.26Education .77* .51Income .01 .22*Age 1.01 1.12*Ideology .47 .87*Partisanship .07 .95*Strength of Partisanship 1.91* 1.41Trust 1.49* 1.57*Optimism .55* .73*Constant 2.55 1.41

Percent Correct 86 89Improvement over Random 21 15Chi-Square 278.5 77.3Beginning 12 Log Likelihood 364.7 142.612 Log Likelihood 86.1 65.3

N 4 200.Logistic regression. Cell entries are unstandardized coefficients. Dependent variables are sup-

port for a third political party and support for term limits (1 4 yes, 0 4 no).*p , .05.

TABLE 5. Determinants of Reaction to Colin Powell

b

Gender 3.82*Race 5.73*Education .51*Income .36Age 1.12Ideology .73Partisanship 1.44*Strength of Partisanship .55Trust scale .11Optimism .74*Constant 47.23

R2 .26

N 4 200.OLS regression. Cell entries are unstandardized coefficients. Dependent variable is feeling

thermometer rating of Colin Powell.*p , .05.


or decision of government, what will bring back trust and confidence in oursystem is the perspective of the people, more specifically, a more realistic,less optimistic perspective of the people. Psychologists have found that wecan become constrained by our own optimism—leaving us unable to suc-cessfully operate in environments that do not nurture high expectations(Spencer and Norem 1996). It is indeed ironic that what our ill-respectedgovernment may need to regain the faith of the American people is a lessoptimistic populace.

APPENDIX: QUESTION WORDING AND CODING

Questions were worded as follows. Coding for purposes of analysis is presented inparentheses.

Demographic Measures

“What year were you born?”(years of age)

“What is your gender?”(1 4 male, 2 4 female)

“What is the highest grade of school or year of college you have completed?”(1 4 , HS, 2 4 HS, 3 4 Some College, 4 4 College Degree, 5 4 Advanced De-gree)

“Please give your best estimate of your household income last yearLess than $15,000

$15,000–$29,999$30,000–$44,999$45,000–$74,999$75,000 or greater”(1 4, 15,000, 2 4 15–29,999, 3 4 30–44,999, 4 4 45–74,999, 5 4 .75,000)

“Do you consider yourself primarilyWhite/CaucasianBlack/African AmericanHispanic/LatinoOther”(1 4 White, 2 4 African American)

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Political Opinion

“I’d like to get your feelings toward some political figures and political groups. I’d likeyou to rate each item on a scale of 1 to 100. Ratings between 50 degrees and 100mean that you feel favorable and warm. Ratings between 0 and 50 mean that you don’tfeel favorable and that you don’t care too much for the person or group. You woulduse the rating 50 if you don’t feel particularly warm or cold toward the item. If thereare any items you do not recognize, please leave the response blank and move on tothe next one.

environmentalistssenior citizenspolitical partiesCongresslabor unionsBill ClintonRoss PerotBob DoleAl GoreColin PowellJack KempDan Quayle”(response 0–100)

“Do you think we would be better off if a third political party were to challenge theDemocrats and Republicans?”

“A law has been proposed that would limit the members of Congress to no more than12 consecutive years of service in that office. Do you favor or oppose such a law?”

“Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, anIndependent, or what?”

“If Republican or Democrat, do you strongly favor that party? If Independent, do youthink of yourself as closer to the Democratic or Republican party?”

Partisanship (1 4 Strong Democrat to 7 4 Strong Republican); Strength of Partisan-ship (1 4 Strong Partisan to 4 4 Independent)

“Where would you place your political viewpoint on this scale

Extremely liberalLiberalSlightly liberalModerateSlightly conservativeConservative


Extremely conservative”(1 4 extreme liberal to 7 4 extreme conservative)

Trust

“People have different ideas about the government in Washington. These ideas don’trefer to Democrats or Republicans in particular, but just to the Government in gen-eral. We want to see how you feel about these ideas.”

“How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington todo what is right?

just about alwaysmost of the timeonly some of the timeNone of the time”(3 points for “Just about always” and “most of the time,” 2 points for “Only some ofthe time,” 1 point for “None of the time”)

“Would you say the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking outfor themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all the people?for the benefit of all

A few big interests”(3 points for “for the benefit of all,” and 1 point for “A few big interests”)

“Do you think that quite a few of the people running the government are crooked, notvery many are, or do you think hardly any of them are crooked?

hardly anynot very manyquite a few”(3 points for “hardly any,” 2 points for “not very many,” 1 point for “quite a few.”)

The trust scale is based on the average score of the three trust questions (1 4 lowesttrust, 3 4 highest trust).

Optimism Measure

“For the following list of life events, please tell us whether you think, in your life, youhave, or have had, an above average, average, or below average chance of experiencingthese outcomes compared to other people your age

never getting divorcedbeing fired from your job

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be the victim of a crimewin an awardhave an auto accidentget a great job or a promotionlive past 80 years of agesuffer an illness in the near futureget mentioned in the newspaper for something good you didbuy an unreliable car”(21 point scale; 110 totally pessimistic to 10 totally optimistic)

NOTES

1. Confidence is, of course, low in a host of areas beyond government (Kanter and Mirvis, 1989).Lipset and Schneider (1983; 1987) find low public confidence in the media, in professionssuch as doctors and lawyers, and in business.

2. Hetherington (1999) finds distrustful voters are particularly drawn to third party candidateswhen major third party contenders are available. Many of these voters presumably have tohold their noses as they cast their ballot, as Nichols (1995) notes that 40% of Perot’s 1992voters did not find Perot to be the most attractive of the three major presidential candidates,but voted for him anyway to register their dissatisfaction with politics as usual.

3. Both counties are politically competitive, and both flipped between support for the Demo-cratic Party in the presidential election of 1996 to support for the Republican Party in theNew Jersey governor’s race in 1997. The final sample was 89% white, with median educationlevel of “some college,” and median household income between $30,000 and $44,999.

4. The complete model results are available from the author.

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Documents

The Other Side of Optimism: High Expectations and the Rejection of Status Quo Politics