Effects of Optimism On Psychological and Physical

Cognitive Therapy and Research, VoL 16, No. 2, 1992, pp.
201-228
Effects of Optimism on Psychological and Physical

Well-Being: Theoretical Overview and Empirical
Update 1
Michael F. Scheier 2
Carnegie-Mellon University
Charles S. Carver
University of Miami
The primary purpose of this paper is to review recent research examining the
beneficial effects of optimism on psychological and physical well-being. The
review focuses on research that is longitudinal or prospective in design.
Potential mechanisms are also identified whereby the beneficial effects of
optimism are produced, focusing in particular on how optimism may lead a
person to cope more adaptively with stress. The paper closes with a brief
consideration of the similarities and differences between our own theoretical
approach and several related approaches that have been taken by others.
KEY WORDS: optimism; stress; coping; health; adjustment; personality.
The optimist thinks that this may be one of the best days ever. The pessimist fears
that the optimist may be right.
Health psychologists are slowly discovering what many lay people seem to
have known for y e a r s - that positive thinking is helpful (e.g., Cousins,
1Preparation of this article was facilitated by NSF grants BNS-9010425 and BNS 90-11653,
by NIH grant 1R01HL4432-01A1, and by American Cancer Society grant PBR-61173.
Michael Scheier would like to dedicate this article to the fighting spirit and optimism of his
mother, Mary Scheier, who was lying critically injured in the hospital during the time in
which it was being written.
2Address all correspondence, including requests for reprints, to Michael F. Scheier,
Department of Psychology, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213.
201
0147-5916/92/0400-0201506.50/0© 1992PlenumPublishingCorporation
202 Scheier and Carver
1977; Peale, 1952). If the effects of optimism were limited to making people
feel better, the claim would be less surprising, although still interesting and
potentially quite important. The effects of positive thinking go beyond sim-
ply making people feel better, however (see also Taylor, 1989; Taylor &
Brown, 1988). Optimism also confers benefits on what people do and what
people are able to achieve in times of adversity.
Our own interest in optimism derives from a more general interest
in the processes that underlie the self-regulation of behavior (e.g., Carver
& Scheier, 1981, 1990a; Scheier & Carver, 1988). Most relevant in the pre-
sent context is the idea that people's actions are greatly influenced by their
expectations about the consequences of those actions. This idea, of course,
is not new with us. Expectancies have provided the cornerstone over the
years for a variety of theories of motivated action(e.g., Bandura, 1977,
1986; Rotter, 1954; Seligman, 1975). In our view, people who see desired
outcomes as attainable continue to strive toward those outcomes, even
when progress becomes difficult or slow. Alternatively, if outcomes seem
sufficiently unattainable (regardless of the reason for the difficulty), people
withdraw their effort and disengage themselves from the goals that they
have set m even if the consequences of such disengagement are at times
severe. Thus, we see people's expectancies as a major determinant of the
disjunction between two general classes of behavior: continued striving vs.
giving up and turning away.
Paralleling this disjunction in behavior is a disjunction in affect
(Carver & Scheier, 1990a, 1990b). When people believe that their goals
are attainable, they experience positive affect, ranging from pride to grati-
tude to simple relief, depending upon the reason underlying the favorable
expectancy (Carver & Scheier, 1990a, 1990b; Weiner, 1982). In analogous
fashion, unfavorable expectancies give rise to negative affect. Depending
again upon the specific attributions that are made, the ultimate quality of
this negative affect can also be far-ranging, encompassing feelings such as
shame, anger, and resentment. Regardless of whether the affect is positive
or negative, its intensity is presumed to vary directly with the importance
of the goal that is threatened.
Our research on positive and negative thinking began with studies on
the effects of situation-specific expectancies (for a review, see Scheier &
Carver, 1988). Over the years, the focus of our research has slowly shifted
to a consideration of expectancies that are more general, if not more amor-
phous, in nature (see, e.g., Scheier & Carver, 1985). We think of these
global expectancies as being relatively stable across time and context, and
as forming the basis of an important characteristic of personality. We la-
beled this characteristic dispositional optimism, and formally defined it as
Optimism and Health 203
the tendency to believe that one will generally experience good vs. bad
outcomes in life (Scheier & Carver, 1985).
Having made the decision to define dispositional optimism in terms
of generalized expectancies, we set out to develop a brief measure of this
characteristic (Scheier & Carver, 1985). The measure we constructed, called
the Life Orientation Test (or LOT), consists of eight coded statements plus
four filler items. The items, half phrased optimistically and half phrased
pessimistically, are high in face validity and simply inquire about the per-
son's general expectations regarding the favorability of future outcomes
(e.g., "I hardly ever expect things to go my way," and "I'm always optimistic
about my future"). After appropriate reversals, responses to items are
summed, with higher scores indicating greater optimism.
While we have relied exclusively on the LOT in our own research,
at least two other scales have been designed to measure roughly the same
quality. One of these scales is the Hopelessness Scale (Beck, Weissman,
Lester, & Trexler, 1974). This scale is similar in format to the LOT, but
farther-ranging, assessing the person's affective experience and giving-up
tendencies (in addition to expectancies). Another potentially relevant mea-
sure is the Generalized Expectancy for Success Scale (Fibel & Hale, 1978),
which measures optimism by asking respondents to indicate their concrete
expectancies across a number of specific life domains.
PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING
At least a half dozen prospective studies have examined the effect of
dispositional optimism on subjective well-being. One of the first examined
the development of postpartum depression in a group of women (Carver &
Gaines, 1987). Women in this study completed the LOT and the Beck De-
pression Inventory (BDI; Beck, 1967) in the third trimester of pregnancy.
They completed the BDI again 3 weeks postpartum. An inverse prospective
association was found between optimism at intake and depression measured
3 weeks p o s t p a r t u m - a relationship that remained significant even when
level of depression at intake was statistically controlled.
A second study investigated the subjective reactions of a group of
men over time to coronary artery bypass surgery (CABS; Scheier et al.,
1989). Each subject was interviewed at three points in time: on the day
prior to surgery, 6 to 8 days postsurgery, and again 6 months later. A variety
of data were obtained from subjects, including information about coping
tactics, mood, rate of both pre- and postdischarge recovery, and quality of
life. Optimism was assessed presurgery using the LOT. In addition to psy-
chosocial variables, medical data were gathered at baseline and at several
points during recovery.
This study yielded several findings relevant to subjective well-being.3

Presurgically, optimists reported lower levels of hostility and depression
than did pessimists. In the week following the operation, optimists reported
feeling greater relief and happiness. At the same time, they reported
greater satisfaction with the level of medical care they had been receiving,
and with the amount of emotional support and backing they had been re-
ceiving from friends. Finally, optimists reported a much more favorable
quality of life at the time of the 6-month follow-up than did pessimists.
An additional wave of information has recently been collected from
these same patients 5 years postsurgery (Scheier, Matthews, Owens, Ma-
govern, & Carver, 1990). Optimism continues to be an important
prospective predictor of the subjective well-being of these patients. Com-
pared to pessimists, optimists are more likely to report feeling rested
following sleep and less likely to report early morning awakenings. Opti-
mists are also more likely than pessimists to report that their lives are
interesting and diverse, and free from pressures and annoyances. Compared
to pessimists, optimists also report getting greater satisfaction out of their
relationships with friends, as well as greater satisfaction from their jobs.
Finally, their general quality of life remains higher than that of pessimists.
It is also worth adding here that the effects we have described (and
will describe) for this study are all independent of several major medical
factors that could have also affected the results - - most notably, the exten-
siveness of the patient's surgery, the severity of the patient's underlying
coronary heart disease, and the patient's standing on the major risk factors
for coronary heart disease. Thus, it is difficult to argue that optimists had
a more favorable psychological response because they were healthier.
The third prospective study also comes from the arena of health psy-
chology (Pozo et al., 1990). It concerns the psychological adaptation made
by a group of women to surgery for early-stage breast cancer. Since the
study is still in progress, the associations described here are those that
emerged from a preliminary analysis of a nearly complete sample. Subjects
were women that have Stage I or Stage II breast cancer. A diagnosis of
Stage I or Stage II implies a relatively good prognosis, though the cancer
dearly poses a threat to future health and survival. Patients are first inter-
viewed at the time of diagnosis, again on the day prior to surgery, and
again 7 to 10 days postsurgery. Followup interviews are conducted 3, 6,
and 12 months later. Optimism was assessed (using the LOT) at the time
3As is true of several studies discussed here, this project provides data from several different
domains. We have chosen to describe the results from these studies in three separate sections
centering around psychological well-being, physical well-being, and coping. The findings of
this study bearing on the latter two domains are described later in the article. Discussion of
the other multifaceted studies is similarly organized.
Optimism and Health 20S
of diagnosis. Negative mood or distress was assessed at all subsequent in-

terviews beyond the initial one.
The critical question is whether optimism predicts distress over time
when relevant medical variables and appropriate baseline measures of
earlier distress are statistically controlled. The answer here seems to be
"yes." The inverse relationship between optimism and postsurgical dis-
tress attains only marginal significance when the association is adjusted
for presurgical level of distress (which correlated very highly with post-
surgical distress), but the inverse relationship between optimism and dis-
tress at 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months does remain significant when
each is adjusted for the previous level of distress. Thus, optimism appears
to be a significant prospective predictor of distress for these patients from
the period surrounding surgery all the way to the 12-month point in their
recovery.
The idea that optimism is related to lesser amounts of distress during
times of difficulty is reinforced further by another recent study conducted
by Aspinwall and Taylor (1990), which examined the adjustment made by
a group of undergraduates to their first semester of college. A host of per-
sonality factors were assessed in this study when the students first arrived
on campus, including optimism (via the LOT), self-esteem, locus of control,
and desire for control. A baseline measure of mood was also obtained, as
was an assessment of the students' preferred ways of coping, Several meas-
ures of psychological and physical well-being were obtained 3 months later
at the close of the winter quarter.
Results showed that optimism had a significant direct effect on
later psychological distress. That is, higher levels of optimism upon en-
tering college were associated with lower levels of psychological distress
3 months later. Perhaps more importantly, this significant association
was obtained even though the model being tested included all of the
other personality factors that were measured. Thus, the association be-
tween optimism and well-being was independent of any effects due to
self-esteem, locus of control, and desire for control. The association was
also shown to be (simultaneously) independent of baseline levels of
mood as well.
We have recently conducted our own study of adaptation to college
life (Scheier & Carver, 1991), following a protocol that is highly similar to
the one used by Aspinwall and Taylor (1990). The one notable exception
is that we had subjects complete the outcome measures twice, once at the
start of the study and again at the end of the study. This permitted us to
evaluate the extent to which optimism was associated with changes in the
outcome measures over time. Consistent with the findings of Aspinwall and
Taylor (1990), optimism was a significant prospective predictor of changes
in perceived stress, depression, loneliness, and social support over time.

Across their first semester at college, optimists became significantly less
stressed, less depressed, less lonely, and more socially supported than did
their pessimistic counterparts.
The final study that we would like to mention examined the relation-
ship between dispositional optimism and distress among a group of gay and
bisexual men who were at risk for developing acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS; Taylor, Kemeny, Aspinwall, Schneider, Rodriguez, & Her-
bert, 1991). All subjects had been tested for human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV) antibody status, and all subjects were aware of the results of their
antibody tests. Subjects were divided into two groups on the basis of whether
they were HIV seropositive (+) or HIV seronegative (-). None of the sub-
jects currently exhibited any sign or symptom of AIDS.
Optimism was assessed in this study via the LOT. Distress was meas-
ured in a couple of different ways. First, a composite score was created
based on subjects' responses to the Hopelessness Scale (Beck et al., 1974)
and their responses to the tension-anxiety, depression-dejection, and an-
ger-hostility subscales of the Profile of Mood States (McNair, Lorr, &
Droppleman, 1971). A second measure of distress was created by asking
subjects to indicate the extent to which they were bothered by AIDS-related
worries and concerns. The results for these two variables were quite clear
and quite consistent. Optimists reported significantly less distress than did
pessimists on both variables, and this was true for both HIV+ and the
HIV- men. Thus, once again optimism was associated with lower feelings
of distress among a group of people undergoing difficult times.4
PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
A number of studies have also considered the possibility that opti-
mism may be beneficial to physical well-being. Our own first effort in this
direction focused on college students over the final weeks of their academic
semester (Scheier & Carver, 1985, Study 3), a particularly stressful time
for most students. Four weeks before the semester ended and again at the
close of classes, subjects completed the LOT and a brief physical symptom
checklist. Optimists in our study reported developing significantly fewer
4Interpretation of the findings from this study is complicated by the fact that the Hopelessness
Scale contributed to the first distress index. As noted earlier, the Hopelessness Scale and
the LOT are in many ways similar to each other. Thus, the criticism might be raised that
the result in question serves only to show that optimism predicts optimism. This problem
does not arise with respect to the second distress index. As a result, the conclusion drawn
regarding the relationship between optimism and distress would still seem to hold, even if
the focus were restricted to the single distress measure.
physical symptoms than did pessimists across time. Moreover, this relation-
ship remained significant even when baseline level of symptoms was
statistically controlled. We have recently replicated these results conceptu-
ally in our study of adaptation to college (Scheier & Carver, 1991), as have
Aspinwall and Taylor (1990).
The findings just reviewed are suggestive, but only that. The problem
is that they are all restricted to self-reports of symptoms and/or overall
health. It thus remains unclear whether optimists truly have a more favor-
able health status, or are simply reporting that they are healthier. Relevant
to this issue is the study described earlier examining the effect of optimism
on recovery from CABS (Scheier et al., 1989). Some of the information
gathered in that study pertains to the patient's physical health status and
rate of recovery. While portions of this information involved the patient's
self-report of health status, other measures were more behavioral and
physiological in nature.
The first finding to note is that optimism was related to several pe-
rioperative physiologic reactions. Compared to pessimists, optimists were
significantly less likely to have developed new Q-waves on their EKGs as
a result of the surgery. They were also less likely to have shown a clinically
significant release of an enzyme labeled AST. Both of these measures are
widely taken as markers for myocardial infarction (MI). The data thus sug-
gest that optimists were significantly less likely than pessimists to infarct
during surgery.
Optimism was also a significant predictor of the rate of the patient's
recovery during the immediate postsurgical period, as assessed by two dif-
ferent types of measures. First, optimists were generally faster to achieve
selected behavioral milestones of recovery (e.g., sitting in bed, walking
around the room) than were pessimists. Second, optimists were rated by
the rehabilitation staff members as showing a more favorable physical re-
covery vis-a-vis the patient's specific medical profile.
Optimists also had a recovery advantage at the time of the 6-month
followup. Patients were asked at this time to indicate the extent to which
their lives had returned to normal across several discrete domains. Opti-
mists were significantly more likely than pessimists to have resumed
vigorous physical exercise, and marginally more likely to have returned to
work on a full-time basis. A significant association also emerged between
dispositional optimism and a composite index, indicating that optimists had
normalized their lives in general across a greater number of domains.
Patients were also asked to indicate how long it took them to nor-
malize their lives in the areas surveyed. Optimists tended to resume
vigorous physical exercise and return to their prior recreational activities
more quickly than did pessimists. Moreover, when rate of recovery within
domains was aggregated by forming a composite across domains, optimism

was a significant correlate of this composite. Optimists thus normalized
their lives in general more quickly than did pessimists.
In addition to answering questions about returning to activities, pa-
tients also completed a questionnaire assessing angina and the possibility
of MI. Although optimism was not a significant predictor of angina, the
data did suggest that optimists were less likely than pessimists to have suf-
fered an MI during the previous 6 months.
As previously noted, an additional panel of data has recently been
collected from these patients 5 years postoperatively (Scheier et al., 1990).
Two findings from this panel merit brief mention here. First, optimists were
still more likely to be working full time than were pessimists. Second,
among patients who were experiencing some angina, the amount of pain
being experienced by optimists was less severe than that being experienced
by pessimists. These findings suggest that optimists were still enjoying a
benefit in physical health status at the time of the 5-year followup.
The last study that we would like to describe in this section of the
paper examined women who were undergoing testing following an abnor-
mal PAP smear (Antoni & Goodkin, 1988). This test showed the degree
of atypical neoplastic growth in the cervix, though subjects did not know
their physical diagnosis at the time of psychological assessment. Among
the psychological variables assessed were a set of psychogenic attitudes
(Millon, Green, & Meagher, 1982), two of which are of particular interest.
One is termed premorbid pessimism (a dispositional attitude of helpless-
ness-hopelessness); the other is termed future despair (a more focused
attitude of hopelessness about the future). Many of the items in these scales
are face-valid indicators of optimism-pessimism (e.g., "Even when things
seem to be going well, I expect that they'll soon get worse," and "I look
forward to the future with lots of hope"). Antoni and Goodkin (1988)
found that these attitudes were significantly related to disease promotion.
Women whose abnormality was diagnosed as more severe had scores in-
dicating greater pessimism than did women whose abnormality was
diagnosed as less severe.
The foregoing studies coalesce around the same conclusion, that op-
timism is beneficial\, for physical well-being. We should note, however, that
\ . • •
the data are not completely

\ consistent m this respect. For example, Ches-
terman, Cohen, an d Adler (1990) found that optimism was positively
related to the number of birth complications experienced by a group of
older women. Similarly, Cohen, Kearney, Kemeny, and Zegans (1989) re-
ported evidence to suggest that optimism may be associated with decreased
immunocompetence (see also Sieber, Rodin, & Larson, 1991). In contrast,
however, Bachen, Manuck, Muldoon, Cohen, and Rabin (1991) have found
the opposite effect among subjects exposed to an acute laboratory stressor.

In the Bachen et al. (1991) study, it was the pessimists who showed de-
creased immunocompetence (as reflected in T-cell proliferation under
mitogen stimulation). The underlying cause of these few negative effects
is not readily apparent. It may have to do with differences in the particular
life stress situation being studied, with differences in the particular subject
population being examined, or with the particular outcome measures being
used. Resolution of the basis for the inconsistencies will have to await fur-
ther research.
OPTIMISM AND COPING

The discussion thus far has been limited to a consideration of the
idea that optimism may confer benefits on psychological and physical well-
being. We have not considered potential mechanisms whereby these
positive effects might be occurring. One obvious candidate concerns the
manner in which optimists and pessimists cope with stress.
The possibility that optimists and pessimists cope differently with prob-
lems has been explored in several recent studies. In one of them (Scheier,
Weintraub, & Carver, 1986, Study 1), undergraduates were asked to recall
the single most stressful event that had happened to them during the pre-
ceding month. They then completed the Ways of Coping Checklist (Folkman
& Lazarus, 1980) with respect to the event they had just recalled. Optimism
correlated positively with problem-focused coping, especially among subjects
who perceived the stressful event to be controllable. Optimism was also posi-
tively correlated with the use of positive reinterpretation and with the at-
tempt to accept the reality of the situation. This latter association became
manifest, however, only when subjects perceived the stressful event as un-
controllable. In contrast, optimism correlated negatively with the use of de-
nial and the attempt to distance oneself from the problem.
We have also begun to examine the relationship between optimism
and dispositional coping tactics (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989), and
a conceptually similar pattern of findings is emerging. That is, as was true
of situational coping responses, optimists also report a dispositional ten-
dency to rely on active, problem-focused coping. Consistent with this, they
also report being more planful when confronting stressful events. In con-
trast, pessimism is associated with the dispositional tendency to disengage
oneself from the goal or goals with which the stressor is interfering. Ad-
ditionally, optimists report a bias toward accepting the reality of stressful
events, whereas pessimists report the use of tactics such as denial and sub-
stance abuse that are designed to lessen their awareness of the problem
at hand. Though optimists report accepting the reality of adverse events,
they also report attempting to make the best of the situation by trying to
construe it in a more positive way and learning from the experience. Taken
together, the findings serve to further reinforce the picture of optimists as
active topers and pessimists as avoidant copers who are more prone to
give up under adversity.
A third study relevant to the relationship between optimism and cop-
ing is the longitudinal study of men at risk for AIDS described earlier
(Taylor et al., 1991). In background interviews, these men revealed that
the primary source of their AIDS-related stress concerned their ability to
deal effectively with unwanted thoughts about the possibility of developing
AIDS. Consequently, a scale was constructed to assess what the men were
doing to cope with their thoughts. Factor analysis of this instrument re-
vealed five f a c t o r s - - m a i n t a i n i n g positive attitudes, growing as a
person/helping others, seeking social support, engaging in fatalism/self-
blame/escape, and avoiding AIDS information. Two of these factors proved
to differentiate optimists from pessimists: optimists scored higher on the
positive attitudes factor than did pessimists and lower on the fatalism/self-
blame/escape factor.
OPTIMISM, COPING, AND WELL-BEING

The studies on coping reviewed thus far begin to establish a pattern,
but they also have a serious limitation. That is, none of them assessed
whether coping differences between optimists and pessimists underlie the
effects of optimism on psychological and physical well-being. Three further
studies have taken this additional step. All have been described earlier in
the article. The first study concerns the adjustments made by undergradu-
ates to college life (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1990); the other two involve the
patients recovering from CABS (Scheier et al., 1989) and cancer surgery
(Pozo et al., 1990).
In the college adaptation study (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1990), subjects
completed the Ways of Coping Checklist (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980) at
the beginning of the study, with respect to the manner in which they were
trying to adjust to college life. Factor analysis revealed four major coping
factors--avoidant coping, active coping, seeking support, and searching
for meaning. The first three of these factors were related through structural
equation modeling to the personality factors that were measured concur-
rently, as well as to the psychological and physical health outcome variables
obtained 3 months later (sampling problems precluded retention of the
fourth factor in the model). The model was constructed so as to represent
the coping dimensions as mediating the associations between personality
and subsequent health.
Consistent with findings already discussed, optimism correlated sig-

nificantly with two of the three coping dimensions included in the model.
Optimists were more likely than pessimists to engage in active coping,
whereas they were less likely to engage in avoidance coping. Given the
nature of the structural model tested, it was clear that these relationships
were independent of any covariation that existed between optimism and
the other personality characteristics measured at the same time (i.e., self-
esteem, locus of control, and desire for control). 5
The second noteworthy set of findings concerned the relationships
between these two coping tendencies and psychological well-being at the
end of the quarter. Both of these coping tactics were significant predictors
of later adjustment, but in opposite directions. Use of avoidance coping
was negatively associated with adjustment, whereas use of active coping
was positively associated with adjustment. As evaluated by the model, the
indirect link between optimism and adjustment running through coping was
significant. Thus, the beneficial effects of optimism seemed to be operating
at least in part through the differences in coping.
Aspinwall and Taylor (1990) also assessed self-reported physical
health in this study. Optimism again proved to exert an indirect influence
on health reports through coping. There were two pathways through which
optimism operated. One ran through the use of avoidance, which was itself
linked directly (and inversely) to physical health. The second pathway op-
erated through the indirect connections just described between optimism,
coping, and psychological well-being. That is, the causal model specified
by Aspinwall and Taylor included a path from psychological well-being to
physical well-being. Since psychological well-being predicted physical well-
being in this study, the variables that predicted psychological well-being
also (indirectly) predicted better physical health. Thus, there was evidence
that coping mediated the link between optimism and both psychological
and physical well-being.
Although the CABS project (Scheier et al., 1989) did not include a
full measure of coping strategies, several items were included in the pro-
tocol to assess the use of particular attentional-cognitive strategies as ways
of dealing with the experience surrounding the period of surgery. Before
surgery, optimists were more likely than pessimists to report that they were
making plans for their future and setting goals for their recovery. Optimists
also tended to report being less focused on the negative aspects of their
5Indeed, our study of adaptation to college life (Scheier & Carver, 1991) suggests that
optimists may even become more adaptive in their patterns of coping over time. Compared
to pessimists, optimists in our study became more likely to formulate plans of action to cope
with the stress they were facing. In contrast, they became less likely over time to use denial,
and to disengage themselves from the coping process.
experience (their distress emotions and physical symptoms) than pessimists.

Once the surgery was past, optimists were more likely than pessimists to
report seeking out and requesting information about what the physician
would be requiring of them in the months ahead. Optimists were also less
likely to report trying to suppress thoughts about their physical symptoms,
but only marginally so.
Path analyses were conducted to assess whether these coping differ-
ences were responsible for outcome differences. Generally speaking, the
analyses provided relatively little support for the idea that these coping
responses underlay the effects of optimism, although there were isolated
instances of particular coping strategies mediating particular outcomes.
There was one notable exception to this general characterization, however.
The impact of optimism on quality of life 6 months postoperatively seemed
clearly due to the indirect effect of differences in coping. Thus, at least for
perceived quality of life, optimism did act indirectly through coping.
We have also begun to explore the role of coping responses in the
ongoing study of adjustment to breast cancer surgery (Pozo et al., 1990).
Recall that patients in this study were interviewed the day before surgery,
7 to 10 days postsurgery, and again 3, 6, and 12 months later. In addition
to the measure of negative mood, all subjects in this study completed an
instrument called the COPE (Carver et al., 1989) at all assessment points.
The COPE asks respondents to indicate the extent to which they have been
engaging in each of a series of behavioral or cognitive tactics as a way of
dealing with the stresses surrounding (in this case) the experience of their
illness and surgery. Presurgically, the patient indicates how much she has
used each tactic since learning she would need surgery; postsurgically, she
refers to the time since surgery; and at each followup she refers to the
preceding month.
Prior to surgery, optimism was associated with reports of planning
and taking active steps to do whatever there was to be done. These as-
sociations disappeared once the surgery had passed. Both before and
after surgery, optimism was also associated with a pattern of reported
coping tactics that revolved around accepting the reality of the situation,
placing as positive a light on the situation as possible, and trying to re-
lieve the situation with humor. By the time of the 12-month followup,
all of these associations had weakened to the point of nonsignificance.
In contrast to this picture of constructive coping, optimism was inversely
associated with a pattern of overt (conscious) denial and reports of be-
havioral disengagement (giving up) at each assessment point in this
study.
The coping tactics that coalesced around optimism and pessimism
were also strongly related to the distress that subjects reported. Positive
reframing, acceptance, and the use of humor were all related inversely to
self-reports of distress, both before surgery and after. Denial and behav-
ioral disengagement were positively related to distress at all measurement
points in the study. At the 6-month followup, a new association emerged,
such that distress was positively correlated with another kind of avoidance
c o p i n g - mental disengagement, or self-distraction. Not unexpectedly,
given the pattern of these correlations, further analysis revealed that there
was a substantial indirect effect of optimism through coping on distress,
particularly at postsurgery. The direct effect of optimism (i.e., unmediated
by coping) also remained significant, however, at presurgery and at the
3-month followup.
OPTIMISM AND POSITIVE HEALTH HABITS

Taken together, the results reviewed thus far are quite uniform in
their representation of optimists as active, problem-focused copers. The fact
that optimists are more likely to engage in problem-focused coping takes
on additional significance when viewed in the context of this special issue.
That is, to the extent that good health represents a desired goal for most
persons, the data suggest that optimists might be more likely than pessi-
mists to engage in positive health practices.
Preliminary data from at least four sources suggest that this is in fact
the case. One source of information comes from the most recent panel of
the CABS project described earlier (Scheier et al., 1990). Subjects in this
study were asked at the time of the 5-year followup to provide information
about their current health habits. Optimists were more likely than pessi-
mists to be taking vitamins on a regular basis, and less likely to be eating
unhealthy lunches (i.e., lunches containing fatty meat). They were also
more likely to have enrolled in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Thus, op-
timists were generally more likely to be engaging in positive health practices
than were pessimists.
The second source of information comes from a project recently con-
ducted by Maroto, Shepperd, and Pbert (1990) in a closely related domain.
These researchers tracked a group of heart patients who were participating
in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Optimism was measured at entry into
the outpatient phase of rehabilitation along with the patients' standing on
several risk factors for coronary artery disease. The patients' standing on
these same risk factors were then reassessed at the completion of the re-
habilitation program. Optimism was associated with greater success in
lowering levels of saturated fat, body fat, and global coronary risk, and
with raising the level of exercise across the rehabilitation period.
Another source of information on this point comes from the AIDS

study (Taylor et al., 1991) described earlier. An important component of
this study is to determine how optimism-pessimism impacts on the practice
of "risky" sex. A significant concurrent association emerged at the first of
two assessment points between optimism and the number of anonymous
sexual partners that the subjects had, but only among HIV seronegative
men (i.e., only among men who had not yet been infected with the AIDS
virus). Among these men, optimists reported having fewer anonymous sex-
ual partners than did pessimists.
A final study examined the relationship between optimism-pessimism
and health maintenance behaviors among a large group of undergraduate
men and women (Robbins, Spence, & Clark, 1991). Along with a number
of other questionnaires, subjects completed the LOT and responded to a
brief measure of their health maintenance behaviors. The results showed
that optimism was positively related to the practice of health-enhancing
behaviors. Moreover, this positive association remained significant even
when the data were first adjusted for a variety of different scales relating
to negative affectivity (Watson & Clark, 1984). Indeed, this partial corre-
lation remained significant even when a measure of positive instrumentality
was added to the covariate list.
PESSIMISM AND DISENGAGEMENT AS A HEALTH THREAT

Until now we have focused largely on the positive coping tactics of op-
timists. The coin has a flip side, however, and it may be useful to discuss in
a bit more detail the tendency on the part of pessimists to deny and avoid,
as manifested in various forms of mental and behavioral disengagement.
The notion that pessimism is associated with a tendency toward dis-
engagement and giving up has been studied directly, in research that
explored two particularly extreme forms of the disengagement tendency.
One of these studies was based on Hull's (1981) argument that alcohol is
often used strategically by problem drinkers to diminish self-awareness (in
an effort to eliminate thoughts about oneself and one's problems). Given
the prevailing tendency on the part of pessimists to use disengagement as
a coping mechanism, it follows that the use of alcohol for this purpose
should be more likely among pessimists than optimists.
A study to test this possibility was conducted among men who had
just completed treatment for alcoholism and had then entered an aftercare
program (Strack, Carver, & Blaney, 1987). The question was who would
complete the aftercare program successfully and move forward into the
working world, and who would instead return to alcohol. As expected, pes-
simists were more likely than optimists to return to alcohol before
completing the program. On the other hand, a more recent study has failed
to find evidence for a role of optimism in remaining abstinent during in-
patient treatment for alcoholism (Carver & Dunham, 1991).
If returning to alcohol abuse is an extreme sort of disengagement, it
is not the worst that might be imagined. Consider suicide, for example, in
many ways the ultimate form of d i s e n g a g e m e n t - a disengagement from
life itself. Beck, Steer, Kovacs, and Garrison (1985) conducted a 10-year
followup of people who had been hospitalized with suicidal ideation. Dur-
ing the hospitalization, all had completed the BDI (Beck, 1967) and the
Hopelessness Scale (Beck et al., 1974), assessing pessimism. Ten years later,
pessimists were more likely to have killed themselves than optimists (see
also Fawcett, Scheftner, Clark, Hedeker, Gibbons, & Coryell, 1987; Petrie
& Chamberlain, 1983). It is of interest that overall BDI scores did not
predict subsequent suicide in this study. One item of the BDI did predict
suicide reliably, however: an item that deals explicitly with pessimism for
the future. This is one further source of information that suggests that pes-
simism is not merely another name for depression.
IS IT REALLY OPTIMISM?
Optimism, as we construe it, is a broad concept relating to a variety
of other personality characteristics. As one might expect, optimism is cor-
related with several different measures of neuroticism and trait anxiety
(e.g., Robbins et al., 1991; Smith, Pope, Rhodewalt, & Poulton, 1989). It
is also correlated with measures of personality characteristics that are more
positive in nature such as self-mastery (Marshall & Lang, 1990), locus of
control (AspinwaU & Taylor, 1990; Scheier & Carver, 1985), and self-es-
teem (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1990; Scheier & Carver, 1985). Given these
correlations, the question might be asked whether optimism really underlies
the findings that we have outlined in this article, or whether the findings
are better explained in terms of alternative constructs.
In this regard, Smith et al. (1989) have recently suggested that the
effects of optimism-pessimism are best understood in terms of neuroticism
or negative affectivity, based on two sets of considerations. First, LOT
scores in their research correlated more highly with two measures of nega-
tive a f f e c t i v i t y t h a n t h e y did with an a l t e r n a t i v e m e a s u r e o f
optimism-pessimism. Ideally, this pattern of correlations should have been
reversed. Second, associations reported by Smith et al. between optimism
and several outcome measures were sometimes substantially reduced when
neuroticism was controlled.
Should effects of pessimism be attributed to neuroticism as Smith et
al. (1989) suggested? Not necessarily. Let's first consider the issue of con-
vergent and discriminant validity. Smith et al. took as their alternative mea-
sure of optimism the Generalized Expectancy for Success Scale (GESS;
Fibel & Hale, 1978). This measure may be a less than optimal indictor, in
spite of our suggestions to the contrary elsewhere (e.g., Scheier & Carver,
1987). More concretely, this scale assesses optimism by asking respondents
to indicate their specific expectancies across a number of distinct life do-
mains. The assumption is that a measure of generalized expectancies can
be derived by summing the person's specific expectancies across domains.
This assumption may not hold. That is, generalized optimism may be more
of an emergent phenomenon, arising out of domain-specific expectancies,
but being somewhat separate from them (cf. Marsh, 1986). If so, one would
not expect correlations between the GESS and the LOT to be exceedingly
high. Indeed, research by ourselves (Scheier et al., 1989) and others (Taylor
et al., 1991) suggests that correlations between generalized optimism and
domain-specific expectancies can be quite low. This suggests that one
should look elsewhere for an alternative measure of optimism.
What about the second basis for Smith et al.'s (1989) s u g g e s t i o n -
the fact that associations between optimism and other variables are some-
times reduced when neuroticism is controlled? In this regard, it is important
to keep in mind that neuroticism is conventionally viewed as a multifaceted
construct which consists partly (though not entirely) of pessimism. Its broad
scope means that it confounds pessimism with other qualities, such as emo-
tional lability and worry (Scheier, 1987). Thus, to ask whether an effect of
pessimism is really an effect of neuroticism begs the question of whether
all facets of neuroticism are important in producing the effect, or only that
part of neuroticism which is pessimism.
The same issue bears on trait anxiety, though less obviously so, be-
cause trait anxiety as a concept is seemingly less multifaceted in nature. It
is important to remember, however, that knowing what variable is being
measured requires one to look at the indicators in the measure, the specific
items of which it is composed, and not just at the measure's title (cf. Briggs,
1989; Nicholls, Licht, & Pearl, 1982). Trait anxiety, though conceptually
different from pessimism, is often measured by item sets in which some
items have strong overtones of pessimism, or by items assessing qualities
that are conceptually distinct from both pessimism and trait anxiety but
moderately related to each, such as depression. As an example, consider
the following representative items from the Trait Anxiety Scale (Spiel-
berger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970): "I am happy," and "I feel blue." Both
of these items are depression items, and as such might be expected to relate
to both pessimism and trait anxiety. Indeed in cases such as this, it seems
reasonable to ask whether the overtones of optimism vs. pessimism carried
in the measure actually underlie certain effects previously ascribed to the

alternative constructs.
In light of these issues, we have been assembling a data set that is
designed specifically to address the problem of variable overlap (the data
set was first reported in Scheier et al., 1989). We have examined the factor
structure of an item set produced by combining the items from the LOT
with the items from several traditional measures of neuroticism and trait
anxiety. Analysis of this combined data set (using varimax rotation) indi-
cated a clear optimism factor, which correlated in the .80s with raw LOT
scores. Subsequent analyses further revealed that this optimism factor
uniquely predicted a significant amount of variance in depression, choice
of coping strategies, and reports of physical symptoms (this latter effect
was, however, limited only to men). These findings suggest that optimism,
as a component of these more general constructs and otherwise, adds
uniquely to the prediction of the outcomes in question.
Also relevant to the issue at hand is the research described earlier
by Robbins et al. (1991) on the relationship between optimism and positive
health habits. Recall that these researchers found a significant association
between optimism and the use of positive health maintenance behaviors.
What is important in this context is the finding that this relationship re-
mained significant even after variations in health maintenance behaviors
were first adjusted for a variety of covariates involving negative affectivity,
neuroticism, and trait anxiety. If optimism as measured by the LOT were
completely redundant with the alternative constructs measured by these
other instruments, this partial correlation simply would not have been sig-
nificant.
Let us now briefly consider the overlap between optimism and posi-
tive personality characteristics, as opposed to the overlap between
pessimism and negative personality traits. As noted, we have been collecting
data on a large number of measures relevant to the issue of the conceptual
and empirical integrity of the optimism construct. Our data set now con-
tains measures of positive characteristics as well as negative ones
including traditional measures of self-esteem, self-mastery, and positive af-
fectivity. The same general pattern of findings that is described above seems
to be emerging here (although analyses for positive characteristics are not
yet complete). Factor analysis of the overall data set once again reveals a
clear optimism factor that predicts aspects of coping, depression, and physi-
cal symptoms, independent of the other positive personality qualities that
were measured.
Evidence consistent with this is also available from two other projects.
Robbins et al. (1991) measured what they called positive instrumentality
in their study of health behaviors. Inspection of the items from their scale,
e.g., "I feel secure that I can do most of the things I try," suggests that it
might best be construed as a measure of self-mastery or competency. The
association that was found between optimism and health-enhancing behav-
iors was significant even when variations in this variable were statistically
controlled. Similarly, all of the effects that were obtained for optimism in
Aspinwall and Taylor's (1990) study of adaptation to college life were found
to be independent of self-esteem, locus of control, and desire for control.
In short, although the data are somewhat mixed (Marshall & Lang,
1990, Smith et al., 1989), we see no compelling reason at this point to
attribute the effects of optimism to an alternative construct.
IS OPTIMISM ALWAYS GOOD?

Implicit in the material that has been presented thus far is the view
that optimism is good for a person. However, a number of people have
raised the possibility that optimism, especially unrealistic optimism, may
confer coping disadvantages (Epstein & Meier, 1989; Tennen & Affieck,
1987; Weinstein, 1984). It may be useful at this point to consider this pos-
sibility more fully.
There are at least two ways in which optimism might lead to poorer
outcomes. One of them derives from the suggestion that it is possible to
be too optimistic, or to be optimistic in unproductive ways (cf. Epstein &
Meier, 1989; Tennen & Affleck, 1987; Weinstein, 1984). We have assumed
that positive expectancies cause the person to continue to work toward the
attainment of goals. Implicit in this view is the notion that the optimistic
person views the positive outcome as at least partially contingent on con-
tinued effort. The outcome may be partially attributable to other things as
well - - e.g., good fortune, the help of a friend, and divine intervention. But
the person must also believe that continued striving is a precondition for
these other resources to play a role. In the absence of such a belief, the
person might simply sit and wait for success to happen, ultimately decreas-
ing the chance that success will occur. Though this is a potential
consequence of being too high in dispositional optimism, we have seen no
systematic evidence that it actually occurs.
Optimism might also prove detrimental in situations that are not ame-
nable to constructive action. When problem-focused coping is possible,
optimists should have an advantage, because they are the ones who tend
to use these tactics. However, problem-focused coping may be less adaptive
in situations that are not open to change (Janoff-Bulman & Brickman,
1982). The tenacity of optimists may put them at a relative disadvantage
in situations that are unalterable (cf. Tennen & Affleck, 1987).
This might be so if the coping strategies of optimists were limited to

the problem-focused domain. But they are not. In addition, optimists use
a host of emotion-focused coping techniques, including a tendency to ac-
cept the reality of the situation, to put the situation in the best possible
light, and to grow personally from experiences they face. In light of these
coping options, optimists may enjoy a coping advantage even in situations
that cannot be changed.
We find it particularly noteworthy that optimists turn toward accep-
tance in uncontrollable situations, whereas pessimists remain more
committed to the use of denial (see, e.g., Scheier et al., 1986). Although
both tactics reflect emotion-focused coping, there are important qualitative
differences between them that may, in turn, be associated with very differ-
ent types of outcomes. More concretely, denial (the refusal to accept the
reality of the situation) means attempting to adhere to a world view that
is no longer valid. In contrast, acceptance implies a restructuring of one's
experience so as to come to grips with the reality of the situation one is
in (cf. Taylor, 1983; Taylor, Collins, Skokan, & Aspinwall, 1989). Accep-
tance thus may involve a deeper set of processes, in which the person
actively works through the experience, attempting to integrate it into an
evolving world view. The active attempt to come to terms with presenting
problems may confer special benefits on acceptance that denial does not
share (cf. Clark, 1991; Pennebaker, 1989). And indeed, this difference in
orientations seems to go hand-in-hand with differences in coping outcomes
(Pozo et al., 1990).
Acceptance may not be totally without cost, however. If a stressor is
short-lived and occurs infrequently, it may be more efficient to cope by
denying its existence rather than by doing the work needed to accept its
reality. Consistent with this reasoning, there are data to suggest that denial
can be useful during the initial stages of coping, or when used to cope with
stressors that are short in duration (e.g., Levenson, Kay, Monteferrante, &
Herman, 1984; see also Suls & Fletcher, 1985). On the other hand, as stres-
sors become longer in duration, or recurring or chronic, the person may
be better off trying to accept them than trying to deny them. By accepting
a situation for what it is, the person adopts a more accurate view of reality,
which allows for the possibility that compensation and gain can be gathered
from life in other ways. If one continues to deny, gain and compensation
in other ways may not be possible. It is interesting to note in this regard
that optimists also tend to rely on personal growth as a coping tactic. This
tactic would seem to be the ideal complement to acceptance because one
can nearly always construe an event as providing some personal gain by
considering it an opportunity for potential growth. In any event, the use
of denial should become increasingly less adaptive as the duration of the
stressor increases. The available data suggest that this is in fact the case
(Levine et al., 1987; see also Suls & Fletcher, 1985).
IS PESSIMISM ALWAYS BAD?

What about the reverse side of the question? Can pessimism ever
work in your favor? Evidence is available on this question, but the data
bear on a more focused type of pessimism than we have been discussing.
Cantor and her colleagues have been conducting a longitudinal study of
college students, investigating (among other things) a coping style that they
term defensive pessimism (Cantor & Norem, 1989). Defensive pessimism
focuses around a particular life domain, such as academic performance.
The defensive pessimist in the academic arena is someone who anticipates
and worries about negative outcomes, despite a prior record of high aca-
demic success. The orientation is construed as self-protective and thus
defensive in two different ways. First, the expectation of poor performance
buffers the person against failure should it actually occur. Second, the worry
and concern about failure actually prompts the person into action, the re-
sult being that defensive pessimists tend to perform as well as academic
optimists (with a similar performance background) on tests.
There are three points to be made about this work. First, defensive
pessimism does seem to work, at least in the short run, for those who use
it. Second, although defensive pessimism works, it does not work any better
than optimism. That is, the academic performances of defensive pessimists
and optimists did not differ from each other in Cantor & Norem's (1989)
study. Thus, this is a case in which a certain type of pessimism fails to hurt
behavior rather than to facilitate it.
Third, although the style can be adaptive in the short run, it appar-
ently is less so in the long run. That is, by their third year of college,
subjects who had been identified as defensive pessimists as freshmen were
no longer performing as well as the academic optimists; moreover, they
were now reporting more psychological symptoms and less life satisfaction
than optimists (Cantor & Norem, 1989). These findings present an inter-
esting parallel to our previous discussion of denial. That is, just as the
effects of denial become more negative over time, so too do the effects of
defensive pessimism. As such, the data raise serious questions about the
utility of this strategy.
RELATED THEORETICAL APPROACHES

Thus far we have focused on one particular theoretical orientation - -
optimism vs. pessimism conceptualized in terms of generalized expectancies
for good vs. bad outcomes. We should note, however, that there are several
other theoretical frameworks which bear some similarity to this one, which
have given rise to their own literatures. Several of these alternatives are
discussed in the sections that follow.
Attributional Style
One body of work derives from the notion of attributional or explana-

tory style (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). This work has its
origins in the animal conditioning laboratory, in the discovery that pro-
longed exposure to inescapable aversive stimuli creates learning and
motivational deficits (e.g., Overmier & Seligman, 1967). Several years later
a cognitive model was proposed to indicate how a similar learned helpless-
ness effect can occur in humans (Abramson et al., 1978). In this cognitive
model, people's causal explanations for past events influence their expec-
tations for controlling future events. The explanations thus influence
people's feelings and their subsequent behavior.
As the attributional theory developed, the researchers gravitated to-
ward consideration of individual differences, and began to focus more on
the possible existence of stable tendencies toward using one or another
sort of attribution. An instrument was developed to measure these attribu-
tional-style tendencies (Seligman, Abramson, Semmel, & v o n Baeyer, 1979)
and two patterns of explanatory style later came to be characterized as
optimistic vs. pessimistic (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). A tendency to at-
tribute negative outcomes to causes that are stable, global (i.e., influencing
many diverse events), and internal is regarded as pessimistic. A tendency
to attribute negative events to causes that are unstable, specific, and ex-
ternal is regarded as optimistic.
There is a clear conceptual link between this theory and the approach
that we have discussed throughout the article. Both theories rely on the
assumption that the consequences of optimism vs. pessimism derive from
differences in people's expectancies (at least in part). This assumption has
been focal in our theory, and it is also i m p o r t a n t - albeit less f o c a l - in
the attributional approach. On the other hand, correlations between the
LOT and measures of attributional style are generally not strong. We tend
to get correlations in the high teens or low .20s. Though the reason for
this is not entirely clear, it may stem from the difference in emphasis be-
tween the a p p r o a c h e s - the fact that the attributional measures focus on
people's judgments about how events are caused, whereas the LOT focuses
directly on expectations for the future.
In spite of the modest association between measures, research find-

ings relating to attributional style tend to parallel the findings that have
been obtained for dispositional optimism. For example, it is now quite clear
that a pessimistic explanatory style is associated with symptoms of depres-
sion. There is also support for the idea that pessimistic explanatory
tendencies represent a vulnerability to the development of depressed symp-
toms following negative events. Extensive reviews of this research literature
are available elsewhere (Peterson & Seligman, 1984; Robins, 1988).
Researchers in the attributional tradition have also focused their at-
tention on the link between attributional style and physical well-being (for
a review, see Peterson & Bossio, 1991). As with psychological distress, the
parallels between the data on attributional style and optimism are clear.
For example, Peterson, Seligman, and Vaillant (1988) tracked the physical
health of a large sample of men from the Harvard classes of 1942-1944,
who were selected as being both physically and psychologically healthy, as
well as academically successful. Explanatory style was assessed when the
men were undergraduates using a special technique to analyze their an-
swers to questions about experiences during World War II. A health status
rating was created for the men every 5 years by having an internist evaluate
information obtained from their personal physicians. When health status
at age 25 was partialed out, pessimism was correlated with poorer health
status at ages 45, 55, and 60.
Part of the association between attributional style and physical health
may be due to effects that attributional style have on immune function.
Kamen-Siegel, Rodin, Seligman, and Dwyer (1991) correlated pessimistic
explanatory style with measures of immunocompetence in a group of older
adults. Persons with a pessimistic style showed signs of lower cell-mediated
immunity than did persons with an optimistic style, controlling for the in-
fluence of current health, depression, medication, recent weight change,
sleep, and alcohol use. In sum, there is now ample evidence that attribu-
tional style is related in important ways to psychological and physical
well-being. By implication, this research serves to underscore the role
played by dispositional optimism as well.
Self-Efficacy
Another construct that is relevant to this discussion is self-efficacy

(Bandura, 1977, 1986). Self-efficacy expectancies are people's expectations
of being either able or unable to execute desired behaviors successfully.
Bandura (1977) proposed that this type of expectancy lies at the heart of
therapeutic behavior change, and has gone on to argue that it plays a major
role in effortful behavior more generally (Bandura, 1986).
The Role of Personal Agency. There are obvious similarities between
self-efficacy and the optimism-pessimism construct, but there are also two
noteworthy differences. One difference is the extent to which the sense of
personal agency is seen as the critical variable underlying behavior. Our
approach to optimism vs. pessimism intentionally de-emphasized the role
of personal efficacy. In our view, perceptions of personal efficacy are one
very important source of favorable expectancies for successful goal attain-
ment, but they are only one such source. Other sources include perceptions
of being in a benign or hostile environment, available assistance from other
people, religious faith, and belief in the effectiveness of medications or pla-
cebos. Bandura's theory, which treats personal efficacy as the sole final
pathway to behavior, appears to include no theoretical role for such influ-
ences on people's expectancies.
We do agree with Bandura that personal efficacy is important. In-
deed, in some circumstances the goal behind behavior is literally to
accomplish something by oneself. In such circumstances the sense of per-
sonal agency is critical to the determination of behavior. Yet there are also
many situations in human behavior in which people do not particularly care
how a good outcome occurs, only that it does occur. Indeed, people some-
times prefer not to have personal control over outcomes (Burger, 1989).
When the person believes that the situation favors goal attainment, and
that reasonable effort will yield success, a sense of personal efficacy (as
opposed to a locus-independent optimism) is less important.
Specific vs. Generalized Expectancies. The second difference between
self-efficacy and optimism concerns the breadth of the expectancy on which
the construct focuses. Bandura (1977, 1986) has rather consistently taken
the position that people's behavior is best predicted by focalized, domain-
specific (or even act-specific) expectancies. Optimism, in contrast, is a very
generalized expectancy. Our view is that both narrow and broad expectan-
cies have a role to play as influences on behavior, and the available data
seem to bear out this belief.
Consider, for example, the CABS study described earlier (Scheier et
al., 1989). This CABS project contained a measure of dispositional opti-
mism, but it also contained measures of specific expectancies. These specific
expectancies were operationalized in terms of the number of weeks that
the patients thought it would take for their lives to normalize following
surgery, in each of five behavioral domains. Analysis revealed three impor-
tant facts. First, the average correlation between dispositional optimism and
these specific expectancies was only in the moderate range. Second, opti-
mism sometimes predicted outcomes that domain-specific expectations
could not predict. Finally, even when the outcome data were first adjusted
for variations on these specific expectancies, virtually all of the significant
findings relating to dispositional optimism remained intact. Thus, disposi-
tional optimism was accounting for outcome variance in this study over
and above the variance that could be accounted for on the basis of specific
expectations.
Conceptually similar findings have emerged from Taylor et al.'s
(1991) study on coping with risk for AIDS (also described earlier). Taylor
et al. assessed specific expectancies by having subjects indicate the extent
to which they thought they were vulnerable to developing AIDS in the
future. Although these specific expectancies did influence a variety of out-
comes, they could not be used to provide a counterexplanation for the
effects of optimism, because specific expectancies and dispositional opti-
mism were largely independent in this study. Taken together with the
results of the CABS study, these data clearly suggest that both specific and
generalized expectancies are useful in the prediction of behavior. Each con-
tains predictive power that is not provided by the other.
CONCLUDING COMMENT
We began this article by noting that a number of people who stand
outside the boundaries of psychology as a science and profession have long
touted the benefits of a positive orientation to life. Only more recently
have researchers given systematic attention to this idea and its many pos-
sible manifestations in the human experience. The evidence gathered thus
far (as reviewed here) provides considerable support for the assertion that
optimism does in fact confer benefits. Compared to pessimists, optimists
manage difficult and stressful events with less subjective distress and less
adverse impact on their physical well-being.
In part, this "optimistic advantage" seems due to differences between
optimists and pessimists in the manner in which they cope with stress. Op-
timists place the best face on the problems that they confront; almost
paradoxically, however, they also tend to accept the reality of problems
when they do occur, rather than try to wish them away. They also try to
deal with problems head on, taking active and constructive steps to make
their situations better. Pessimists are more inclined than optimists to en-
gage in a variety of tactics of avoidance coping, and are more likely to give
up on efforts to move toward their goals. In short, optimists seem to be
more fully engaged in their lives and making the best of them; pessimists
experience life as harder and less manageable.
The evidence obtained thus far provides a window on how optimists
and pessimists differ from each other, but the picture is not yet complete.
For example, although optimists and pessimists do report differences in

their patterns of coping, those coping differences do not always prove to
be pathways by which differences in eventual well-being come to exist. This
means that there are still pathways yet to be uncovered, aspects of the
puzzle yet to be resolved. In light of what has been found thus far, however,
the challenge of clarifying this picture would seem to be well worthwhile.
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Effects of Optimism On Psychological and Physical

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Cognitive Therapy and Research, VoL 16, No. 2, 1992, pp.

Effects of Optimism on Psychological and Physical

This study yielded several findings relevant to subjective well-being.3

of diagnosis. Negative mood or distress was assessed at all subsequent in-

in perceived stress, depression, loneliness, and social support over time.

domains was aggregated by forming a composite across domains, optimism

the data are not completely

the opposite effect among subjects exposed to an acute laboratory stressor.

OPTIMISM AND COPING

OPTIMISM, COPING, AND WELL-BEING

Consistent with findings already discussed, optimism correlated sig-

experience (their distress emotions and physical symptoms) than pessimists.

OPTIMISM AND POSITIVE HEALTH HABITS

Another source of information on this point comes from the AIDS

PESSIMISM AND DISENGAGEMENT AS A HEALTH THREAT

in the measure actually underlie certain effects previously ascribed to the

IS OPTIMISM ALWAYS GOOD?

This might be so if the coping strategies of optimists were limited to

IS PESSIMISM ALWAYS BAD?

RELATED THEORETICAL APPROACHES

One body of work derives from the notion of attributional or explana-

In spite of the modest association between measures, research find-

Another construct that is relevant to this discussion is self-efficacy

For example, although optimists and pessimists do report differences in

Clark, L. F. (1991). Stress and the cognitive-conversational benefits of social interaction

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