Optimism and Its Associations with Health Behavior and Responses to Health Communication

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda J. Dillard ◽  
Erin M. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Health Behavior ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Dispositional Optimism ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Unrealistic Optimism ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Comparative Optimism ◽  
Actual Risk ◽  
Experience Good ◽  
Positive Expectancy

When individuals are asked whether they will someday own their own home, enjoy a productive career, or develop a myriad of diseases, many are optimistic. Generally, they think they will experience more good than bad outcomes in life and they view themselves as more likely than similar others to experience the good things and less likely than others to experience the bad things. In the area of health behavior and communication, there are three primary types of optimism that have been defined and operationalized: (1) Dispositional optimism is the generalized positive expectancy that one will experience good outcomes. (2) Comparative optimism refers to the belief that one is either more likely than others to experience positive events or less likely than others to experience negative events. (3) Unrealistic optimism refers to an underestimation of one’s actual risk of experiencing some negative event. Although the three types of optimism may be correlated, their associations may be modest. Also, unlike dispositional optimism, which is an individual difference, comparative and unrealistic optimism are often risk perceptions about specific events and therefore can be defined as accurate or inaccurate. For this reason, the latter two types of optimism have sometimes been labeled the optimistic bias. Research on all three varieties of optimism affords opportunities to understand how optimism influences information processing in a health message or one’s behavioral intentions following the message.

scholarly journals Staying over-optimistic about the future: Uncovering attentional biases to climate change messages

Semiotica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (218) ◽  
pp. 21-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Beattie ◽  
Melissa Marselle ◽  
Laura McGuire ◽  
Damien Litchfield
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Neural Coding ◽  
Dispositional Optimism ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Optimism Bias ◽  
The Public ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Selective Information Processing ◽  
Visual Fixations

AbstractThere is considerable concern that the public are not getting the message about climate change. One possible explanation is “optimism bias,” where individuals overestimate the likelihood of positive events happening to them and underestimate the likelihood of negative events. Evidence from behavioral neuroscience suggest that this bias is underpinned by selective information processing, specifically through a reduced level of neural coding of undesirable information, and an unconscious tendency for optimists to avoid fixating negative information. Here we test how this bias in attention could relate to the processing of climate change messages. Using eye tracking, we found that level of dispositional optimism affected visual fixations on climate change messages. Optimists spent less time (overall dwell time) attending to any arguments about climate changes (either “for” or “against”) with substantially shorter individual fixations on aspects of arguments for climate change, i.e., those that reflect the scientific consensus but are bad news. We also found that when asked to summarize what they had read, non-optimists were more likely to frame their recall in terms of the arguments “for” climate change; optimists were significantly more likely to frame it in terms of a debate between two opposing positions. Those highest in dispositional optimism seemed to have the strongest and most pronounced level of optimism bias when it came to estimating the probability of being personally affected by climate change. We discuss the importance of overcoming this cognitive bias to develop more effective strategies for communicating about climate change.

Responsiveness processes and daily experiences of shared reality among romantic couples

2021 ◽  
pp. 026540752110176
Author(s):  
Yael Bar-Shachar ◽  
Eran Bar-Kalifa
Keyword(s):  
Significant Interaction ◽  
Epistemic Uncertainty ◽  
Romantic Partners ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Romantic Couples ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Daily Diaries ◽  
Shared Reality ◽  
Critical Process

Shared reality (SR) is the experience of having an inner state believed to be shared by others. Dyadic responsiveness has been suggested to be a critical process in SR construction. The present study tested the extent to which SR varies in the daily lives of romantic partners and whether this variability is related to responsiveness processes. We predicted that disclosure of personal events to one’s partner as well as perceived partner enacted responsiveness would be associated with daily levels of SR. We further predicted that these associations would be more pronounced when one has low epistemic certainty with respect to the disclosed event. To test these hypotheses, daily diaries were collected from 76 cohabiting romantic couples for a period of 4 weeks. Participants reported the occurrence of daily personal positive and negative events, indicated whether they had disclosed these events to their partner, and described how their partner had responded. As predicted, the disclosure of positive and negative events, as well as the perceptions of partners’ constructive responses to these disclosures, were positively associated with daily SR. A significant interaction was found between epistemic uncertainty (i.e., low perceived social consensus) and responsiveness processes in the context of negative (but not positive) events; specifically, when participants experienced low certainty, the disclosure of the event and the perceived partner’s constructive response were more strongly associated with SR.

scholarly journals Good is stronger than bad for eudaimonic well-being

2022 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 455-490
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Martínez-Zelaya ◽  
Marian Bilbao Ramírez ◽  
Darío Páez Rovira
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Negative Life Events ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Post Traumatic Growth ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Basic Beliefs

Perceived changes in basic beliefs and growth related to life events were examined in three studies. A representative sample (N = 885), a sample of students and their families (N = 291) and a sample of students (N = 245) responded with a list of positive and negative life events, a scale of changes in basic beliefs and a post-traumatic growth scale. Positive events were strongly associated with changes in basic beliefs, while only weak associations were found for negative events. In addition, negative changes in basic beliefs were associated with growth only in negative life events and positive changes in basic beliefs were generally associated with growth.

Understanding Child Anxiety

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Eli R. Lebowitz
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Child Anxiety ◽  
Anxiety Level ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Biological Factors ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Perceived Risks ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Ultimate Outcome

This chapter provides an overview of anxiety in general, and child anxiety in particular. A child who is anxious is typically going to overestimate the likelihood of negative events and to downplay the likelihood of positive ones. What is the ultimate outcome of these predictable patterns of thinking? If negative events seem highly probable, while positive events seem less likely, it is not surprising that anxious children tend to veer away from perceived risks and to move toward a more cautious course of action. The chapter then addresses some common questions asked by parents of children with anxiety. Multiple things can contribute to a child’s anxiety level, including internal and biological factors as well as external and environmental factors. Anxiety can also look very different in different children. It is useful to think about a child’s functioning in four separate domains: body, thoughts, behavior, and feelings. Anxiety can impact each domain in various ways.

scholarly journals In Human Memory, Good Can Be Stronger Than Bad

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Sedikides ◽  
John J. Skowronski
Keyword(s):  
False Memory ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Regulatory Activity ◽  
Positive Information ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Self Protection ◽  
Positive Content

Some researchers assert that the psychological impact of negative information is more powerful than that of positive information. This assertion is qualified in the domain of human memory, in which (a) positive content is often favored (in the strength of memories for real stimuli or events and in false-memory generation) over negative content and (b) the affect prompted by memories of positive events is more temporally persistent than the affect prompted by memories of negative events. We suggest that both of these phenomena reflect the actions of self-motives (i.e., self-protection and self-enhancement), which instigate self-regulatory activity and self-relevant processes.

Narcissism and Causal Attribution

1997 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen R. Ladd ◽  
M. Cay Welsh ◽  
William F. Vitulli ◽  
Elise E. Labbé ◽  
Joseph G. Law
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Attributional Style ◽  
Causal Attribution ◽  
Personality Inventory ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Narcissistic Personality ◽  
Narcissistic Personality Inventory ◽  
Attributional Style Questionnaire ◽  
The Relationship

This study examined the relationship between scores on narcissistic personality traits and causal attributions to positive and negative events. 119 undergraduate students in psychology as participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory-40, the Attributional Style Questionnaire, and several Self-referencing Closed-ended Vignettes. Analyses indicated that men who scored higher on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory-40 made more internal and stable attributions to positive events and more external and unstable attributions to negative events than did men who scored lower on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory-40. Also scores on the Self-referencing Closed-ended Vignettes correlated significantly and positively with the Attributional Style Questionnaire, providing evidence for the validity of the vignettes.

Personnes âgées et perception des risques en matière de conduite automobile: les conducteurs âgés manifestent-ils encore de l'optimisme comparatif?

2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Spitzenstetter ◽  
Michelle Moessinger
Keyword(s):  
Image Enhancement ◽  
Personnes Âgées ◽  
Older Drivers ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Comparative Optimism ◽  
Conduite Automobile ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Comparison Target

ABSTRACTPeople frequently express comparative optimism; that is, they believe they are less likely than average to experience negative events. The aim of the present study is, first, to observe whether people of more than 65 years are still optimists when they evaluate driving-related risks; and second, to test the assumption that older drivers show less optimism when they compare themselves with average-age drivers than when they compare themselves with same-age drivers. Our results reveal that drivers of more than 65 years do, indeed, express comparative optimism, but, contrary to our expectation, only in a limited number of cases does the age of the comparison target appear to have an effect. These results are particularly discussed in terms of self-image enhancement.

Counterfactuals in Health and Risk Messaging

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina A. Iles ◽  
Xiaoli Nan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Counterfactual Thinking ◽  
Depth Information ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Political Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Control

Counterfactual thinking is the process of mentally undoing the outcome of an event by imagining alternate antecedent states. For example, one might think that if they had given up smoking earlier, their health would be better. Counterfactuals are more frequent following negative events than positive events. Counterfactuals have both aversive and beneficial consequences for the individual. On the one hand, individuals who engage in counterfactual thinking experience negative affect and are prone to biased judgment and decision making. On the other hand, counterfactuals serve a preparative function, and they help people reach their goals in the future by suggesting effective behavioral alternatives. Counterfactual thoughts have been found to influence an array of cognitive processes. Engaging in counterfactual thinking motivates careful, in-depth information processing, increases perceptions of self-efficacy and control, influences attitudes toward social matters, with consequences for behavioral intentions and subsequent behaviors. Although it is a heavily studied matter in some domains of the social sciences (e.g., psychology, political sciences, decision making), counterfactual thinking has received less attention in the communication discipline. Findings from the few studies conducted in communication suggest that counterfactual thinking is a promising message design strategy in risk and health contexts. Still, research in this area is critically needed, and it represents an opportunity to expand our knowledge.

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