ArticlePloS one2015
Unequally distributed psychological assets: are there social disparities in optimism, life satisfaction, and positive affect?
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 122 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of optimism and stage of change on alcohol use and problems among sexual minority men with HIV participating in a brief motivational interviewing intervention.Journal of substance use and addiction treatment · 2025Trial
- Lower life satisfaction, active coping and cardiovascular disease risk factors in older African Americans: outcomes of a longitudinal church-based intervention.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2018Trial
- Dietary flavonoid intake and psychological well-being - A bidirectional relationship.Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Article
- Individual, intergenerational, and contextual factors associated with coping strategies, coping variability, and perceived coping efficacy among young adults.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Optimism and cognitive functioning trajectories in a cohort of aging men.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Looking on the (B)right Side of Life: Cognitive Ability and Miscalibrated Financial Expectations.Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2025Article
- The distribution of optimism across sociodemographic groups in 22 countries.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- When the glass is half full: early life experiences and adult optimism in 22 countries.Npj mental health research · 2025Article
- Longitudinal determinants of thriving in Puerto Rican climate crisis migrants on the U.S. mainland: A structural equation model.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Stress, positive affect, and sleep in older African American adults: a test of the stress buffering hypothesis.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2025Article
- How factors connected to the natural environment shape football fans' eudaimonic and hedonic well-being.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic status, reserve capacity, and depressive symptoms predict pain in Rheumatoid Arthritis: an examination of the reserve capacity model.BMC rheumatology · 2024Article
- Who Benefits and How: Five Dimensions of Adolescent Psychological Well-Being and Their Relative Impact on Cardiometabolic Health in Adulthood.The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2024Article
- Individuals who see the good in the bad engage distinctive default network coordination during post-encoding rest.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- How does educational inequality affect residents' subjective well-being?-Evidence from China.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Examining the Relationship Between Multilevel Resilience Resources and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence, Overall and by Psychosocial Risks, Among Participants in the Jackson Heart Study, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, and the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study.American journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- Unpacking Psychological Vulnerabilities in Deaths of Despair.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Family Formation History and the Psychological Well-Being of Women from Diverse Racial-Ethnic Groups.Journal of health and social behavior · 2023Article
- Effects of Induced Optimism on Subjective States, Physical Activity, and Stress Reactivity.The journal of positive psychology · 2023Article
- Resources and lymphocyte terminal maturity among older adults.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Socioeconomic status is associated with health disparities, but underlying psychosocial mechanisms have not been fully identified. Dispositional optimism may be a psychosocial process linking socioeconomic status with health. We hypothesized that lower optimism would be associated with greater social disadvantage and poorer social mobility. We also investigated whether life satisfaction and positive affect showed similar patterns. Participants from the Midlife in the United States study self-reported their optimism, satisfaction, positive affect, and socioeconomic status (gender, race/ethnicity, education, occupational class and prestige, income). Social disparities in optimism were evident. Optimistic individuals tended to be white and highly educated, had an educated parent, belonged to higher occupational classes with more prestige, and had higher incomes. Findings were generally similar for satisfaction, but not positive affect. Greater optimism and satisfaction were also associated with educational achievement across generations. Optimism and life satisfaction are consistently linked with socioeconomic advantage and may be one conduit by which social disparities influence health.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.