Two sides of optimism: The positive and negative consequences of dispositional optimism
and optimistic attributional style
Evgeny Osin (Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia)
[email protected]
Tamara Gordeeva (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)
[email protected]
Theoretical Background
Results: Attributional Style as a Performance Feedback Moderator
Optimistic people report being happier and more satisfied with life. However, the studies of association between optimism and
achievement have produced rather controversial results. The reason is that there are two different approaches to optimism: optimistic
attributional style tradition (Peterson et al., 1982), where optimism is operationalised as a tendency to attribute positive events to
causes that are permanent, global, and associated with one’s personality, and dispositional optimism, defined as generalized
expectations of positive events in the future (Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1990; Scheier & Carver, 1988). These two constructs are often
placed under the same general label of optimism in the literature, however, their underlying psychological mechanisms are different.
Although their association with well-being might be similarly positive, as the literature suggests, the two varieties of optimism should
result in different performance consequences in a specific activity.
The students were split into 5 performance groups based on their GPA during the first examination session which preceded the
measurement. They were split into 2 groups based on the median of optimism scores for positive and negative situations. Using ANOVA
approach, we entered past performance and one of the optimism variables in turn, expecting to find an interaction effect.
It was found that optimistic attributional style moderated the
effect of academic performance feedback on academic
performance during 3 subsequent examination sessions (see
Figure 2). More specifically, students within middle and
lower-middle performance range who were more likely
to give optimistic explanations to their academic failures
were likely to show lower perofmance in the future. Their
more pessimistic counterparts, in contrast, were probably
likely to invest more effort into future activity, resulting in
higher grades. Only attributional style for negative
situations showed this pattern of association with
performance; no similar moderating effects were found for
positive situation explanations.
Current effect: F(4, 122)=7.5803, p=.00002
Vertical bars denote 0.95 confidence intervals
4.0
Hypothesis
Our hypothesis is that optimistic attributional style and dispositional optimism (Scheier, Carver, 1987) have different patterns of
association to achievement in academic domain. This hypothesis is based on the previous findings. Our previous results indicated a
positive association between attributional optimism and academic achievement in several school student samples, but an inverse
relationship in a university entrant sample’(Gordeeva, Osin, 2009). Yet another study (Osin, Gordeeva, Sychev, 2009) revealed that
dispositional optimism was associated with lower achievement in an academic competition setting, and was marginally negatively
associated with academic performance at university.
The aim of the present study was to summarise and confirm these findings in a single sample, to see the interaction between optimistic
attributional style and dispositional optimism.
GPA During 3 Subsequent Exam Sessions
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
3.0
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
0
Methods
1
2
3
4
Failure explanation:
Pessimistic
Optimistic
Success Level At First Exam Session
A longitudinal study was undertaken in two cohorts (N=166 and N=128) of first- and second-year Chemistry students at the Moscow
State University. Validated Russian 8-item version of Life Orientation Test (LOT: Gordeeva, Sychev, Osin, 2010) was used to measure
dispositional optimism, and 36-item Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ: Gordeeva, Osin, Shevyakhova, 2009) was used to measure
optimistic attributional style for positive and negative situations. Academic performance was operationalised as grade point average
spanning 4 subsequent semesters.
Figure 2. The moderating effect of optimistic
attributional style on previous and subsequent
academic performance.
In order to discern between the effects of dispositional and attributional optimism upon subsequent performance, path analysis was
performed, entering attributional optimism as predictor of performance, controlling for dispositional optimism (see Figure 3). The results
analysis revealed negative unique contribution of dispositional optimism to achievement, confirming the existence of two different
mechanisms behind the association of optimism and achievement.
Results: Optimism and Academic Achievement
SPRING EX
-0.20*
In the first cohort, moderate significant positive correlations (see Table 1) were found between AS and LOT scores, but only AS for
positive events demonstrated positive associations with future achievement indicators.
Fall Exams 2008
Spring Exams 2009
Fall Exams 2009
Spring Exams 2010
Optimistic AS: Positive Sit.
Optimistic AS: Negative Sit.
Optimistic AS
Positive Situations
.11
.15
.24 **
.18 *
Optimistic AS for
Negative Situations
-.02
-.01
-.06
-.04
.02
Dispositional
Optimism (LOT)
-.13
-.11
-.07
-.04
.35 ***
.25 **
LOT_POS*
0.26*
OAS POS
-0.24*
Figure 3. Path analysis indicating inverse association of the two
varieties of optimism to subsequent academic performance
(N=153, all parameters significant at p<.05).
0.97
0.19*
0.97
E2*
0.79*
E45*
E3*
0.30*
0.94
FALL EX
The second cohort data is being analyzed to replicate these findings. The results fit well with the ideas of self-regulation approach
(Carver, Scheier, 1983) and the concept of unrealistic optimism.
Table 1. Correlations between optimistic attributional style, dispositional optimism and academic achievement (N=153).
*** p<.001, **p<.01, *p<.05
Discussion
The data allowed to discern the possible effects of optimistic
explanations for positive and negative situations. A path
analysis model (see Figure 1) indicated that optimistic
explanations of positive situations predicted future academic
achievement and, marginally, vitality, while optimistic
explanations of negative situations predicted future wellbeing more strongly.
The results suggest that dispositional and attributional optimism are indeed different psychological mechanisms, each with its specific
effects upon performance. These effects can be moderated by situational variables.
However, we hypothesized that optimistic attributional
style, unlike dispositional optimism, is not only a
motivational factor, but also a cognitive feedbackprocessing mechanism. The way people explain their
successes and failures results in different conclusions they
make, with different consenquences for motivation and
performance.
OAS POS
0.26*
FALL EXAMS
0.97
E3*
Dispositional
Optimism
Attributional
Optimism
POSITIVE
Motivates initiation of goaldirected activity. Associated with
increased well-being.
Associated with increased wellbeing. Optimistic explanations of
successes are associated with
sustained activity performance.
NEGATIVE
Positive expectations may lead to
underestimation of activity
difficulty, resulting in less effort
invested.
Optimistic explanations of failures
lead to less effort invested into
activity.
Consequences
0.19*
VIT DISP
0.93
E27*
0.31*
0.45*
OAS NEG
0.23*
SWLS
0.97
E34*
Figure X:
6 2atr_st
Chi Sq.=3.17
P=0.67components
CFI=1.00 RMSEA=0.00
Figure
1.EQS
The
association
of two
of optimistic
attributional style to well-being and achievement 1 year later
(N=102; Chi-sq.=3.17, p=.67; CFI=1.00, RMSEA=0.00; all paths
significant p<.05).
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Prof. Dmitry Leontiev for his useful comments, and to the students who assisted the data collection.
Future Directions
The conclusions above summarize the results of several correlational studies undertaken during the last years. It is planned to test the
existence of these mechanisms in an experimental setting, using dispositional optimism and induced optimistic vs. pessimistic
explanations of activity outcomes as predictors of motivation, effort invested, and resuting performance of subsequent activity.