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Compare And Contrast Optimism And Pessimism

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(Scheier, Weintraub, & carver, 1986) and are more planful than pessimists (Fontaine, Manstead ,& Wanger, 1993). Also, optimists tend to use the approach-oriented coping strategies of positive reframing and seeing the best in situations, whereas pessimists are more avoidant and use denial tactics (Carver & Scheier, 2002). Optimists appraise daily stresses in terms of potential growth and tension reduction more than their pessimistic counterparts do. Also, when faced with truly uncontrollable circumstances, optimists tend to take plights, whereas pessimists actively deny their problems and thereby tend to make them worse. Therefore, an optimist knows when to give up and when to keep plugging whereas pessimist still pursues a goal when it is not …show more content…

A pessimist takes a more negative view, focusing on what is missing or wrong about the situation whereas an optimist adopts a positive outlook in life and focuses on what is available. Hence, individual differences in describing people’s general positive or negative expectations about the future are explained by their optimistic/ pessimistic orientation.
First, optimism is a source of motivation as it is much easier to initiate action when we believe or actions will lead to positive outcomes when facing obstacles. By interpreting bad events as temporary and limited to specific situations, optimists protect themselves from strong negative emotional reactions that might undermine confidence and interfere with effective coping (Carver & Scheier, …show more content…

The scale is comprised of a total of 12 items, with 4 items for each subscale. The MSPSS is intended to measure the extent to which an individual perceives social support from three sources: Significant Others (SO) (Items 1, 2, 5, and 10), Family (FA) (Items 3, 4, 8, and 11) and Friends (FR) (Items 6, 7, 9, and 12). The MSPSS is a brief, easy to administer self-report questionnaire which contains twelve items rated on a seven-point Likert-type scale with scores ranging from ‘very strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘very strongly agree’ (7). The MSPSS has proven to be psychometrically sound in diverse samples and to have good internal reliability and test-retest reliability, and robust factorial validity. It has been translated into many languages, including Urdu, Hebrew, Tamil, Danish, Farsi (Persian), French, Italian, Korean, Lithuanian, Hausa, Norwegian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Slovene, Malay, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and

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