ChapTER 13 Emotion, Stress, and Health 465& Fincham, 2012).
Optimism also back
fires when it keeps
people from pre
paring themselves
for complications of
surgery (“Oh, every
thing will be fine”) or causes them to underesti
mate risks to their health (Friedman & Martin,
2011; Shepperd et al., 2013).
For optimism to reap any benefits, it must
be grounded in reality, spurring people to take
better care of themselves and to regard setbacks
as challenges rather than as reasons to give up.
Realistic optimists are more likely than pessi
mists to be active problem solvers, get support
from friends, and seek information that can help
them (Brissette, Scheier, & Carver, 2002; Geers,
Wellman, & Lassiter, 2009). They keep their
senses of humor, plan for the future, and reinter
pret the situation in a positive light. Pessimists, in
contrast, often do selfdestructive things: They
drink too much, smoke, fail to wear seat belts,
drive too fast, and refuse to take medication for
illness (Peterson et al., 1998). So, however, do
unrealistic optimists.Conscientiousness and Control. Thus, it is
not optimism by itself that predicts health and
wellbeing. You can recite “Everything is good!
Everything will work out!” 20 times a day, but
it won’t get you much (except odd glances from
your classmates). Optimism needs a behavioral
partner.
In one of the longest longitudinal studies
ever conducted in psychology—for 90 years!—
researchers were able to follow the lives of more
than 1,500 children originally studied by Lewis
Terman, beginning in 1921 (see Chapter 7).
Terman followed these children, affectionately
called the “Termites,” long into their adulthood,
and when he died in 1956, other researchers took
up the project. Health psychologists Howard
Friedman and Leslie Martin (2011) found that
the secret to longevity for the Termites was con-
scientiousness, the ability to persist in pursuit of
goals, get a good education, work hard but enjoy
the work and its challenges, and be responsible.
Conscientious people are optimists, in the sense
that they believe their efforts will pay off, and
they act in ways to make that expectation come
true. The findings on the Termites, who were
largely a homogeneous cohort that was white and
middle class, have been replicated across more
than 20 independent samples that differed in
terms of ethnicity and social class (Deary, Weiss,
& Batty, 2010).illness of a loved one, do not get sick (Bonanno,
2004; Taylor, Repetti, & Seeman, 1997). What
protects them?Optimism. When something bad happens to
you, what is your first reaction? Do you tell your
self that you will somehow come through it okay,
or do you gloomily mutter, “More proof that if
something can go wrong for me, it will”? In a
fundamental way, optimism—the general expecta
tion that things will go well in spite of occasional
setbacks—makes life possible. If people are in a
jam but believe things will get better eventually,
they will keep striving to make that prediction
come true. Even despondent fans of the Chicago
Cubs, who have not won the World Series in liv
ing memory, maintain a lunatic optimism that
“there’s always next year.”
At first, studies of optimism reported that
optimism is also better for health, wellbeing,
and even longevity than pessimism is (Carver &
Scheier, 2002; Maruta et al., 2000). You can see
why popularizers in the media ran far with this
ball, some claiming that having an optimistic
outlook would prolong the life of people suffer
ing from serious illnesses. Unfortunately, that
hope proved, well, overly optimistic: A team of
Australian researchers who followed 179 patients
with lung cancer over a period of eight years
found that optimism made no difference in who
lived or in how long they lived (Schofield et al.,
2004). Indeed, for every study showing the ben
efits of optimism, another shows that in some
circumstances it can actually be harmful. Among
other things, optimists are more likely to keep
gambling even when they lose money, and they
can be more vulnerable to depression when the
hopedfor outcome does not occur (McNultyAbout the Benefits of
OptimismThinking
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