Optimism

Optimism refers to the quality of being full of hope, and emphasising the good parts of a situation, or a belief that something good will happen.

Assessing optimism:

Life Orientation Test (Original: 1985, revised 1994): Self-report - explicit measurement of optimism trait. Included 6 items of 3 positively and 3 negatively worded items, plus 4 filler items. Measured on a 5-point Likert scale.

Attributional Style Questionnaire: 6 positive and 6 negative events, asks possible cause of event and for a rating of internality, stability and globality. Internality: was this due to something about you or to something about other people/circumstances? Stability: in this situation will this cause again be present? Globality: is the cause something that just influences this situation, or does it also influence other areas of life? Individuals higher in optimism are more likely to view negative events as circumstantial and temporary, rather than personal and permanent.

Optimism is associated with

• confidence
• persistence

Lack of optimism associated with

• doubt
• hesitation
• is amplified by stress (Scheier & Carver, 1985)

Styles for coping with stressful life events differ too. Optimism is associated with the use of social, and problem-solving strategies, which buffers against potential causes of psychological difficulty. Lack of optimism is associated with denial, avoidance, and attention to negative feelings (Scheier et al, 1986)

Psychological effects and well-being: Lack of optimism associated with perceived stress, psychological symptoms, and life satisfaction (Chang, 2002). Also with depression (Vickers & Vogeltanz, 2000) and other affective disorders (Broekhof et al, 2015)

Health outcomes: Lack of optimism associated with cardiovascular disease (DuBois et al, 2015), and risk of cancer, stroke, depression (Rasmussen, Scheier & Greenhouse, 2009). Sleep quality (Lemola et al, 2011) including insomnia also influenced.

Lau et al (2015) conducted longitudinal study of 987 Chinese working adults. Optimism and sleep quality showed stability over time. There was some evidence of optimism predicting better sleep, and vice versa. Depressive mood mediated relationship between optimism and sleep quality.

Optimists engage in effective coping strategies which reduced depressive mood. Optimism buffers effect of daily hassles on health outcomes, maintaining good mood. Optimism results in good sleep through mood regulation.

Neff & Geers, 2013: optimism helps resilience and constructive conflict resolution, thus optimism increases marital satisfaction. However, always expecting positive outcomes is unrealistic, leading to disappointment and dysfunciont which can reduce marital satisfaction.

They conducted a study on 61 couples in their first year of marriage, and those married for less than 6 months, through questionnaires, observations and daily diaries. Used questionnaire measures of relationship-specific optimism, quality of marriage index, marital problems inventory, Rosenberg self-esteem questionnaire and neuroticism from Eysenck's personality questionnaire. In observations, couples were scored for problem-solving behaviour and problem importance. Diary recorded conflict and problem-solving behaviour.

They found that global and relationship optimism was not strongly correlated. Self-esteem and neuroticism were also associated at a low level. Global optimism was linked with more constructive responses to relationship conflict, and less decline in satisfaction over a year. From the diaries, they found on days when spouses received greater negativity from their partner, those higher in global optimism engaged more often in positive problem-solving responses than those low in global optimism.

People are inherently optimistic. We hold unrealistic optimism that we are: less likely to experience bad stuff than others, and more likely to experience good stuff than others.

Weinstein et al (1980): study of 120 female students. Hypothesised that people believe negative events are less likely to happen to them than to others, and believe that positive events are more likely to happen to them than to others. Participants were presented with 18 positive future achievements, and 24 negative ones. The hypothesis was strongly supported.

Financial analysts expect improbably high profits (Calderon, 1993), and family law attorneys underestimate the negative consequences of divorce (Pure & Robinson, 2007)

Sharot et al (2011): participants were more likely to update a negative belief if average probability of experiencing negative life event was lower than participant's own probability estimation, i.e adjustment in a desirable direction.

Unrealistic optimism may be adaptive: it enhances exploration behaviours and reduces stress and anxiety associated with negative expectations