So they define pessimists as people who did better than they expected? I'm not convinced this means pessimists are smarter. Maybe it just means that smarter pe

So they define pessimists as people who did better than they expected? I'm not convinced this means pessimists are smarter. Maybe it just means that smarter people are more likely to surprise themselves by how well they perform. If someone expects great outcomes, it doesn't make them pessimists if they do even better than that. Oxford's first definition of "pessimist" is "a person who tends to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen," which is not at all what the study looks at.