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Optimism And Relationships

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Optimism’s relationship with well-being and satisfaction with life has been well studied, even before positive psychology was seen as a major topic in psychology. Optimism is positively correlated with life satisfaction (Szczesniak & Soares, 2011). A students degree of optimism is a predictor of satisfaction with life and distress in college (Brissette, Scheier, & Carver, 2002; Yalcin, 2011). Newlyweds who were higher in optimism solved problems more constructively, had lower decline in marital well-being in the first year of marriage, and were better able to handle relationship trouble (Andersson, 2012a; Neff & Geers, 2013). A husbands optimism is associated with marital satisfaction early on while a wife’s optimism is associated with greater …show more content…

Optimists are more likely to complete college with only 15% dropping out in first year compared to 30% of pessimists (Solberg Nes, Evans, & Segerstrom, 2009). Furthermore, optimism of law students predicted higher earnings after 10 years of graduating (Stegerstrom, 2007). Socially, optimists tend to work harder in their relationships and have broader social networks with people from different education, age, and racial group (Andersson, 2012b; Rand, Martin, & Shea, 2011). On top of that, people seem to be more accepting of optimistic viewpoints and social interactions with optimistic people are rated pore positively (Helweg-Larson, Sadeghain, &Webb, 2002; Raikkonen, Matthers, Flory, Owens, & Gumps, …show more content…

There are differences and problems that still need to be clarified. For the sake of this article, optimism and pessimism are shown as one dimension, with someone low in optimism being high in pessimism. However, there are contradictory ideas about whether optimism and pessimism are unidimensional or two dimensions. There is evidence to support the theory that they are unidimensional with low optimism being the same as high pessimism and vise versa (Rauch, Schweizer, & Moosebougger, 2007). However, there is evidence to support the theory that they are two separate dimensions and people can be high or low in both optimism and pessimism (Herzberg, Glaesmer, & Hoyer, 2006). Additionally, optimism studies are largely done on European Americans so there is no clarification on the universality of the results. People from eastern cultures experience more positive emotions when they are experiencing negative emotions so they might be more optimistic than western

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