Optimism, Accumulated Life Stress, and Psychological and Physical Adjustment: Is it Always Adaptive to Expect the Best

Abstract

To evaluate Tennen and Affleck's (1987) vulnerability hypothesis, this study examined optimism-pessimism as a moderator of the link between accumulated negative life stress (over the past year) and psychological adjustment (depressive symptoms and life satisfaction) and physical adjustment (physical symptoms and vulnerability to illness) in a large sample of college students (N = 560). Results indicated that optimism-pessimism and negative life stress significantly predicted each outcome. Moreover, for all of the outcomes, except for life satisfaction, a significant Optimism-Pessimism × Accumulated Negative Life Stress interaction was found. As expected, a plot of the significant interactions indicated that optimism, but not pessimism, exacerbated the associations between accumulated negative life stress and poor psychological and physical outcomes. Implications of the present findings for future research and for understanding the costs and benefits of optimism and pessimism are discussed.