Optimism & It’s Impact on People's Well-Being

Introduction

Optimism isn’t just good for you, it can help create a positive performance that lead to changes of one’s behavior against all odds. As Martin Luther said, “even if I knew that tomorrow the world will go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree”. His words teaches that though they may be unfortunate circumstances, it should not opaque the possibility of hoping for a better event or outcome. Data report for the study shows that women have a higher impact on an individual’s optimism score on the LOT-R and age was not an influence. The experiment included 30 people, 15 women and 15 men. They were all of different age gaps and from different cultures and walk of life. They have all experience different events in their personal lives.

The experiment was done to evaluate or hypothesizes which gender among male and female is more optimistic. It also helped to discover who has a higher quality of life on the negative outcomes. Sheehy’s study found that 25% of women were more optimistic about not only their quality of life but about their future while men score a very low percent (Sheehy, 2011). In Sheehy’s article, Girlfriends are key to women’s optimism, he found women are more optimistic because they cope with strategies and resist stress level when socializing among their friends. When girlfriends meet, they hope and cope together coming to terms with their situations in hope of a better outcome.

As in the article, Optimism and It’s Impact on Mental and Physical Well-being, it states that women with breast cancer for example, band together, stand on optimism, and hope which increases the impact on mental and physical well-being. This is a psychological phenomenon for the most informed who seeks a positive attitude instead of being pessimistic. It is used as a mechanism to try to regain their lives. The pessimistic just give up and avoid problem and don’t even attempt to regain control of their lives (Conversano, 2011). The data from the research and survey help to demonstrate how optimism can help a patient survive and perhaps live longer. It showed how women are more optimistic than men. It also demonstrated how women respond to optimism as their stress reducer when confronting with a threatening situation.

Participants

The survey was for 30 participants. 50% were females and 50% were males. Each were grouped or categorized by age. The breakdown is as follows, females 6% of one participant was under the age of 20. Ages 21-30 were 53% with 8 participants, another 6% of one participant was between the ages of 31-40. 20% were 3 participants of 41-50 years of age, 1 participant 6% was 51-60 years old, and 1 participant was 6% at 60 and over. Male participants were as follow, 0% was under 20, males between 21-30 years of age were 47% with 7 participants, 3 participants, 20% were between the ages of 31-40, 2 more participants between 41-50 years old were 13%, and another 3 participants were 20% of ages 51-60, and 0% for 0 participants over 60.

Materials

The Life Orientation Test, revised (LOT-R) is a revised version of the original 12-item measure test of optimism versus pessimism which is now used as a 10-item measure. Respondents are scaled from a 1-5 point scale. 1 meaning that the participant strongly disagreed with the statement, 2 the participant just disagree, 3 the participant is neutral, 4 the participant agrees, 5 the participants strongly agrees with the statement. This is known as the Likert scale. The test was developed to measure and interpret between optimism and pessimism (Carver, Sheier & Bridges, 1994).

Procedure

Participants were contacted via email with a survey of six statements that evaluated how optimistic each individual was. The survey was categorized by gender and age. Surveys sent back by via email were data placed into the excel spread sheet to be analyzed.

Results

The data collected between the female and male participants did not change much. The LOT-R scores for both genders are almost equal. Yet analyzing the data it showed that female scored higher or equal than the males. Data also demonstrated that females are certainly more optimistic than males. According to (Salkind, 2017), the same information is found at median “set of values with 50% of cases that go above and 50% that fall below”. The ratio was 24 for females and 20 for males. Data from a given set may be positive or negative. Both genders had a symmetrical distribution with males that score right at 25 and females who scored above 25. The female Kurtosis value 0.27 was positive and the male was negative at 1.11. The mean for the females was at a value of 24.13 while the males were at a value of 19.67. The skewness for the female was at a negative 0.20 while the males where at a positive 0.38. In the results for the females, the mode was 24 and was repeated five times while the mode for the males was 16 with a repeat of three times throughout the data collection.

Discussion

Before conducting the survey and collection of data, the writer hypothesized that females are more optimistic than males. After doing LOR-T and collecting the analyzed data, it confirmed that women in fact are more optimistic. Referring to the researches done and reviewed from the two articles, Girlfriends are key to women’s optimism, and Optimism and Its Impact Physical and Mental Health and Physical Well-Being, helped support the given hypothesis that females are more optimistic. Not only are they optimistic, their stress level are less as they apply knowledge of healthy lifestyles to their cognitive respond to a problem that needs solving.

Optimism always expects a better outcome in the future. The mental attitude influences the physical and coping on a daily basis. As for women their optimism is to have loyal friends to keep them alive. Just like the example put forth in the article Girlfriends are key to women’s optimism, cancer has united the lady’s in pink to fight together to strive for a healthier lifestyle with others. It shows that one can seek help through others who can relate and help you pick up when you are down.

References:

1. Conversano, Ciro, Rotondo, Alessandro, Lensi, Elena, … Mario Antonio. (n.d.). Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being. Bentham Open.Girlfriends are key to women’s optimism – Gail Sheehy. (2011, October 4). Retrieved from http://gailsheehy.com/journalism/girlfriends-are-key-to-womens-optimism/
2. GraphPad Statistics Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.graphpad.com/guides/prism/6/statistics/index.htm?stat_kewness_andkurtosis.htm
3. How Positivity Makes You Healthy and Successful. (2017, March 13). Retrieved from https://www.success.com/how-positivity-makes-you-healthy-and-successful/
4. Salkind, N. J. (2017). Statistics for people who (think they) hate statistics (6th ed.).
5. Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., & Bridges, M. W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): A reevaluation of the Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1063-1078. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.67.6.1063