Optimism

Optimism is defined as an individual’s belief that future life events will contain positive

outcomes (Azizzadeh, F. M., & Batool, T. 2015). According to Hojat, M., Vergare, M., Isenberg,

G., Cohen, M., & Spandorfer, J. (2015), it is a powerful cognitive filter that has the capacity to

influence how an individual perceive an event, how to adapt and react to situations. There are

various ways to define optimism, such as explanatory optimism-pessimism, comparative or

unrealistic optimism, and situation-specific optimism (Boehm, J. K., Chen, Y., Williams, D. R.,

Ryff, C., & Kubzansky, L. D. 2015). Explanatory optimism-pessimism assumes that an

individual’s expectations of the future come from their view of the causes of events in the past,

which is one’s way of explaining the unfortunate events that happens (Pacheco, B., & Kamble, S.

V. 2016). Unrealistic optimism or comparative optimism, on the other hand, includes improper

beliefs (Avvenuti, G., Baiardini, I., & Giardini, A. 2016) that an individual’s own future outcome

will be more favourable than that of other people (Shepperd, J. A., Waters, E. A., Weinstein, N.

D., & Klein, W. M. 2015). Although there are different definitions of optimism, the simplest

way to define it is generally having favourable outcome expectations for the future, which is

called dispositional optimism (Boehm, J. K., Chen, Y., Williams, D. R., Ryff, C., & Kubzansky,

L. D. 2015).

Dispositional optimism is perceived to be a global expectation that there are more good

things than bad in the future and this approach asks people to point out the extent of their belief

in future outcomes (Pacheco, B., & Kamble, S. V. (2016). Another study defines dispositional

optimism as a personality trait that indicates how individuals are generally expecting positive

outcomes about their future (Taber, J. M., Klein, W. M., Ferrer, R. A., Lewis, K. L., Biesecker,

L. G., & Biesecker, B. B. (2015). It is also considered to be an individual’s general belief that
good things may happen as a result of one’s internal means such as intelligence, or external

means such as luck (Weinberg, M., Besser, A., Zeigler-Hill, V., & Neria, Y. 2015). Optimism

also has its cognitive and affective components which are first, optimism involves a goal-

oriented belief that one will succeed and will have positive outcomes now and in the future and

second is it includes affective components which an individual tends to view things in the

positive light (Lu, X., Xie, B., & Guo, Y. (2018).

According to Renaud, J., Wrosch, C., & Scheier, M. F. 2018, dispositional optimism

benefits different aspects such as well-being, life satisfaction, and emotional well-being. Also, it

is known to be associated with greater physical and psychological well-being (Hanssen, M. M.,

Vancleef, L. M. G., Vlaeyen, J. W. S., Hayes, A. F., Schouten, E. G. W., & Peters, M. L. 2015).

Also, Le, D. H., Cropley, D. H., & Gleaves, D. H. (2015) study results showed optimism was

proposed as an important determinant of mental health. For example, Ronaldson, A., Molloy, G.

J., Wikman, A., Poole, L., Kaski, J. C., & Steptoe, A. (2015) study results showed that

individuals that are more optimistic had more effective recovery after a cardiac surgery and had

greater psychological well being. Better global sleep quality is also related to optimism (Uchino,

B. N., Cribbet, M., de Grey, R. G. K., Cronan, S., Trettevik, R., & Smith, T. W. 2017). Optimism

is also associated stress, as there are low levels of stress in optimists and had more effective

coping strategies (Pacheco, B., & Kamble, S. V. 2016).

According to the Attribution Theory, optimistic people have made a positive, internal

acknowledgement about succeeding now and in the future (Lu, X., Xie, B., & Guo, Y. (2018).

In another theory called theory of explanatory style, optimistic people tend to assess a stressful

situation in a more positive way and believe that there are positive events coming their way.