Optimism and resources: Effects on each other and on health over 10 years

Abstract

Dispositional optimism may be associated with growth of social and status resources by virtue of optimists’ greater persistence and better performance. Conversely, resource growth may give people a more positive view of their future and increase optimism. Changes in dispositional optimism and resources over 10 years were examined in former law students (N = 61). More optimistic first-year law students made more money 10 years later, but income did not predict later optimism. More optimistic students did not have larger social networks 10 years later, but increases in social network size predicted increased optimism. These changes predicted mental and physical health. Dispositional optimism was less stable than many personality traits (r = .35), potentially because it is responsive to resource change.

Introduction

Dispositional optimism, the generalized expectancy for good rather than bad to happen in the future, is associated with a broad range of positive outcomes, including better performance, higher likelihood of goal attainment, better mental health, and better physical health. Optimists’ advantage in well-being seems to come in part from their characteristic approach orientation to managing both stressful problems and stress-induced emotions, that is, their coping style (Solberg Nes & Segerstrom, 2006). This active approach likely accounts for optimists’ resilience to stressful or negative events (Carver & Scheier, 1999).

Optimists also enjoy higher well-being than pessimists in the absence of stressors. Although the mechanisms for this advantage are less well characterized, it is likely that the same active orientation that leads optimists to be resilient to stress also leads to greater well-being in the absence of stress. One important characteristic of dispositional optimists is that they persistently and effectively pursue goals, both in the lab and in naturalistic settings (Aspinwall and Richter, 1999, Carver et al., 1979, Scheier and Carver, 1982, Segerstrom and Solberg Nes, 2006, Solberg Nes et al., 2005). By doing so, optimists are more likely to accumulate resources over time. Accumulation of resources such as money, friendship, skill, and status is thought to be accompanied by better health (e.g., Hobfoll, 1989). Epidemiological evidence supports this proposal, as both socioeconomic status (SES) and social network size robustly predict mental and physical health and longevity (Gallo and Matthews, 2003, House et al., 1988). Therefore, resource accumulation and growth is a likely mechanism by which optimism benefits physical and mental health.

Human resources are many and diverse, but status and social resources are particularly important. Status resources such as seniority, leadership, money, and possessions and social resources such as relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners typically dominate measures of both resources and goals (i.e., intentions to acquire resources) (Diener and Fujita, 1995, Emmons, 1989, Hobfoll, 1998). Some short-term evidence suggests that optimists are more successful than pessimists in pursuing both status and social resources. For example, college success and graduation are important for attaining higher status, both in terms of the contribution of educational level per se to SES and the implications of college graduation for employment status and income. Optimists perform better in college and are less likely to drop out (Chemers et al., 2001, Solberg Nes, 2004), so they may also be more likely to achieve higher professional status in the future. Likewise, optimists actively pursue social relationships, have more friends and longer friendships, and are more popular compared with their more pessimistic counterparts (Brissette et al., 2002, Geers et al., 1998, Nurmi et al., 1996). Others react more positively to interactions with optimists than to interactions with pessimists (Carver et al., 1994, Lepore and Ituarte, 1999, Räikkönen et al., 1999). It therefore appears that optimism could lead to long-term accumulation of both status and social resources.

Conversely, resource accumulation or loss could lead to changes in optimism. People acquiring more resources have good reason to expect better futures. For one thing, having resources provides a buffer against resource loss. Getting in a car accident and having to pay a $1000 insurance deductible hurts, but less so when there is $11,000 in the bank than when there is $1100. Furthermore, resource losses can compound; initial loss can deplete resources and make one vulnerable to further loss (Hobfoll, 1998, Wells et al., 1999). Having fewer resources could make one feel more vulnerable to negative events in the future, that is, more pessimistic.

Likewise, more resources may provide one with a sense of more potential positive events in the future, that is, more optimism. More income may translate into more potential vacations, more friendships may portend more potential celebrations, and so on. Benefits can even cross over resource categories: For example, HIV seropositive women with more socioeconomic resources were more likely than those with fewer resources to report positive changes in their social relationships as a result of HIV. Furthermore, socioeconomic resources appeared to mediate the relationship between optimism and positive social changes in this sample, suggesting that optimism can create an upward spiral of resources (Updegraff, Taylor, Kemeny, & Wyatt, 2002).

Dispositional optimism, as its name implies, is generally stable, with test-retest rs of .58 to .79 over periods lasting from a few weeks to 3 years (Atienza et al., 2004, Lucas et al., 1996, Scheier and Carver, 1985, Scheier et al., 1994). However, these correlations reflect overlapping variance of only 33–62% between two administrations. Even considering the internal reliability of the measure of dispositional optimism, the Life Orientation Test (typically .70 to .80; e.g., Scheier et al., 1994), these correlations reflect the potential for change as well as stability. In a direct test of the proposition that changes in life circumstances can lead to changes in optimism, Atienza et al. (2004) examined changes in optimism over 1 year as a function of problems at work and in relationships among adult women. As problems at work and with their spouses increased, women’s optimism scores dropped; conversely, as problems decreased, optimism scores increased. To the degree that “problems” indirectly reflected resource loss and gain, these findings support the notion that optimism is influenced by available resources. Developmentally, more childhood resources, including status (family finances) and social resources (parental warmth and approval), predict more adult optimism (Heinonen et al., 2005, Korkeila et al., 2004).

This evidence demonstrates that over fairly short periods of time—weeks to months—there can be a reciprocal relationship between optimism and resources that could lead to better psychological and physical health. However, benefits to health, particularly physical health, may depend on long-term resource accumulation and growth; that is, transient resources may not be sufficient to affect long-term health outcomes. Furthermore, changes in dispositional optimism are more likely to be observed over long periods of time, since traits generally change more substantially over a span of years or decades than weeks or months (Fraley & Roberts, 2005). This is specifically true of optimism: The lowest reported test-retest correlation for the LOT, r = .58, was reported after a 3-year delay and was markedly lower than the 4-week test-retest correlation, r = .76, reported on a parallel sample (Lucas et al., 1996).

The present study complements the short-term findings with a long-term analysis of changes in optimism and resources in a group of law students initially studied as they started law school (Segerstrom, Taylor, Kemeny, & Fahey, 1998). At a 10-year follow-up, change in their levels of optimism was examined in light of their social and status resources acquired while graduating from law school and beginning their early careers. Additionally, the study explicitly tests the premise that changes in optimism and resources can affect mental and physical health. The primary hypotheses of the study were that initial optimism would predict greater resource growth and that greater resource growth would contribute to increases in optimism and, additionally, that any upward spiral of optimism and resource growth would have positive implications for mental and physical health.

In addition, differences between optimism and pessimism were explored. Some evidence suggests that optimistically phrased items of the LOT (e.g., “I always look on the bright side of things”) are distinct from pessimistically phrased items (e.g., “Things never work out the way I want them to”) (Kubzansky et al., 2004, Marshall et al., 1992, Robinson-Whelan et al., 1997), although this may be in part a methodological artifact related to item extremity (McPherson and Mohr, 2005, Røysamb and Strype, 2002). Optimistic items are more highly correlated with measures reflecting behavioral approach, such as extraversion; pessimistic items are more highly correlated with measures reflecting behavioral inhibition, such as neuroticism (Carver et al., 2000, Marshall et al., 1992). To the degree that specific goals and resources are normatively motivated by approach or avoidance, or to the degree that they are more readily achieved by approach or avoidance, optimism and pessimism may have different relationships to resources.