Optimism

Optimism and Quality of Life

Research suggests that dispositional optimism promotes various aspects of subjective well-being, including life satisfaction and emotional well-being. Optimism can also benefit an individual’s physical health; for example, optimists are more likely than pessimists to show adaptive patterns of hormonal, immune, or cardiovascular functioning. In addition, dispositional optimism has been associated with faster recovery from surgery as well as lower risk of cardiovascular disease, progression of illness, postsurgical rehospitalization, and mortality.

Dispositional optimism facilitates subjective well-being and physical health through the ability to cope with goal-related stressors. This proposition is rooted in expectancy-value models of motivation, which indicate that because optimists generally expect positive outcomes to occur in their future, they will continue to invest effort [Page 1550]and commitment if progress toward an important goal is threatened or slowed. By contrast, pessimists typically experience considerable doubt about desired future outcomes and thus are more likely to withdraw effort and commitment when they confront problems in the pursuit of important goals.

Meta-analytic research supports this assumption by documenting strong associations between dispositional optimism and problem-focused or approach-oriented coping, which directly alter cognitions and behaviors aimed at overcoming a stressor (e.g., planning or problem-solving). Pessimists, by contrast, tend to manage stressors more frequently by engaging in avoidant coping (e.g., denial or behavioral disengagement). Furthermore, as compared to pessimists, optimists also engage more frequently in effective emotion-focused coping (e.g., acceptance or positive reframing) and develop more extensive and supportive social networks in stressful life circumstances.

Of importance, the differences in coping tactics and social networks observed between optimists and pessimists have been linked to individual differences in subjective well-being and physical health. Thus, these self-regulation processes represent the direct correlation between dispositional optimism and an individual’s quality of life.

Age-Related Changes in the Benefits of Optimism

Although the adaptive value of dispositional optimism is well established, less is known about whether the benefits of optimism remain stable across the life span. This question has been raised in recent discussions about whether the effects of optimism could at times be reduced or even reversed. Support for the idea that the consequences of optimism may vary across life circumstances stems from motivational theories of life-span development. This body of theory posits that the frequency of encountering uncontrollable stressors increases in older adulthood when personal resources decline and there are fewer opportunities for attaining desired goals. Accordingly, life-span developmental research has demonstrated that persistent goal striving can be less effective in older, as compared to younger, adults because older individuals are more likely to experience goal-related problems that can no longer be resolved.

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