Optimism refers to peoples’ general tendency to anticipate good outcomes in areas that are important to them. Numerous studies have shown that optimism is significantly correlated with improved physical and mental health. Optimism can come to an overly optimistic degree, called optimism bias. People generally expect better outcomes and fewer negative events to happen for themselves in the future compared to the average person. There are two sides to this: being optimistically biased might lead to risky behavior, but it might also ease people's worries about the future. To have a consistently negative view is suggested to correlate with depressive symptoms and worsened health. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the neural correlates and functional markers of optimism and optimism bias. Optimism is suggested to correlate with gray-matter volume in the thalamus, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and bilateral putamen. The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) have a crucial role in dismissing undesirable information and self referential processing. Research regarding this issue might be beneficial for further understanding of the connection between optimism and well-being.

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Cognitive theories of depression include maladaptive thinking styles as depressive vulnerabilities. The hopelessness theory of depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989) particularly implicates stable and global attributions for negative events as influences upon depression. Positive event attributions are considered less influential, yet they have shown equal predictiveness to negative event attributions for depression-specific mood. Previous research has provided equivocal results largely because of cross-sectional design and modest psychometric properties of the measures. The present research aimed to: create a new instrument to measure optimistic and pessimistic attributions; test the relatedness of attributions for positive and negative events; and, clarify relationships of the scales with optimism and mood. Three studies were undertaken, all of which used structural equation modeling. Two cross-sectional studies, using 342 and 332 community participants respectively, developed and validated the Questionnaire of Explanatory Style (QES). A final longitudinal study with 250 community participants tested the predictive validity of the QES. Overall, six scales were developed, three of which were optimistic and three of which were negative. The scales were acceptable to community samples and had adequate psychometric properties. The optimistic scales were attributions for positive events and the negative scales were attributions for negative events rather than pessimistic scales. Cross-sectional results indicated that only one of the negative scales weakly directly predicted depression-specific mood, but all predicted general psychological distress. By contrast, the optimistic scales were more directly predictive of depression-specific mood, particularly the Positive Disposition scale. Longitudinal results indicated that two of the optimistic scales were the most important QES predictors of depression-specific mood two months later. The optimistic scale Positive Disposition appears most central to the prediction of both concurrent and subsequent depression-specific mood. The scale content represents explanations for positive events that are internal and stable characteristics. These may be construed as personal competencies to bring about positive outcomes. This scale is closely allied to measures of optimism. Findings affirm the importance of optimistic attributions to the understanding of depression-specific mood and provide a productive focus for therapeutic intervention and future research.

<p>The idea with this study is to examine if there are a connection between how optimistic people are in relation to how stressed they feel. The result from the survey is based on materials from a questionnaire has been sent to fifty persons of varying age and sexes. The questionnaire has also been sent to students from Karlstad University but also to friends and acquaintances. The data is measured with SE- and LOT-tests. The issues concerned in which scope respondents experiences themselves stressed and optimistic and how the connection is between experienced stress and optimism in relation to results on the figure tests. This study showed a significant difference in average LOT-points and results in SE. Likewise, a significant difference was shown in average LOT-points and energy results. High LOT-points tend to give lower stress-points while low LOT-points are associated with high stress-points.  </p>

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1997. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-103). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL:http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ27356.

The idea with this study is to examine if there are a connection between how optimistic people are in relation to how stressed they feel. The result from the survey is based on materials from a questionnaire has been sent to fifty persons of varying age and sexes. The questionnaire has also been sent to students from Karlstad University but also to friends and acquaintances. The data is measured with SE- and LOT-tests. The issues concerned in which scope respondents experiences themselves stressed and optimistic and how the connection is between experienced stress and optimism in relation to results on the figure tests. This study showed a significant difference in average LOT-points and results in SE. Likewise, a significant difference was shown in average LOT-points and energy results. High LOT-points tend to give lower stress-points while low LOT-points are associated with high stress-points.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

Thesis (MPsy(Specialisation))--University of South Australia, 2002.

Thesis (M.S.)--Georgia Southern University, 2007. / "A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science." Under the direction of Jonathan N. Metzler. ETD. Electronic version approved: May 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-45) and appendices.