Optimism and Health - Essay
Optimism and Health
Karen Ibister
2/17/2013
3:20 PM
Colleen Story
PSY/220
Sun-Sat
Optimism and Health
In my opinion this article breaks down optimism on physical and psychological health very well. The article explains as it is commonly understood, the term ‘optimism’ embraces two closely correlated concepts: the first is the inclination to hope, while the second more generally refers to the tendency to believe that we live in “the best of all possible worlds”, as coined by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his famous theodicy, ridiculed in Voltaire’s Candied.
Over the last few years, a significant body of research has been carried out about the effectiveness of optimism as a psychological phenomenon, leading to various theoretical formulations of the same concept, understood as “disposition”, “attribution style”, “cognitive bias”, or “shared illusion”.
Scheier and Carver theorized the “disposition” towards optimism in their studies, called “dispositional optimism”, considering it a trait of an equilibrated personality, in time and in various situations, that influences the way in which individuals come to terms with present, past and future events in life. Optimistic individuals are positive about events in daily life. In the research carried out regarding this perspective, positive correlations have been found between optimism and physical/mental well-being. Optimistic subjects tend to have more frequently protective attitudes are more resilient to stress and are inclined to use more appropriate coping strategies.
In open contrast, studies carried out by Peterson and Seligman, that were prevalently directed towards the understanding of the psychological bases of pessimism, lead to conception of its opposite, optimism, as an “attribution style”, characterized by the tendency to believe that negative events are inconstant (the negative event will not repeat itself), external (I am not responsible for the event) and specific (the
Karen Ibister
2/17/2013
3:20 PM
Colleen Story
PSY/220
Sun-Sat
Optimism and Health
In my opinion this article breaks down optimism on physical and psychological health very well. The article explains as it is commonly understood, the term ‘optimism’ embraces two closely correlated concepts: the first is the inclination to hope, while the second more generally refers to the tendency to believe that we live in “the best of all possible worlds”, as coined by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his famous theodicy, ridiculed in Voltaire’s Candied.
Over the last few years, a significant body of research has been carried out about the effectiveness of optimism as a psychological phenomenon, leading to various theoretical formulations of the same concept, understood as “disposition”, “attribution style”, “cognitive bias”, or “shared illusion”.
Scheier and Carver theorized the “disposition” towards optimism in their studies, called “dispositional optimism”, considering it a trait of an equilibrated personality, in time and in various situations, that influences the way in which individuals come to terms with present, past and future events in life. Optimistic individuals are positive about events in daily life. In the research carried out regarding this perspective, positive correlations have been found between optimism and physical/mental well-being. Optimistic subjects tend to have more frequently protective attitudes are more resilient to stress and are inclined to use more appropriate coping strategies.
In open contrast, studies carried out by Peterson and Seligman, that were prevalently directed towards the understanding of the psychological bases of pessimism, lead to conception of its opposite, optimism, as an “attribution style”, characterized by the tendency to believe that negative events are inconstant (the negative event will not repeat itself), external (I am not responsible for the event) and specific (the