ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2022
Optimism, Daily Stressors, and Emotional Well-Being Over Two Decades in a Cohort of Aging Men.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Psychosocial trajectories in Germany across a decade of societal crises.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2026Article
- Loneliness and quality of life among older adults: the mediating role of resilience.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Optimism and cognitive functioning trajectories in a cohort of aging men.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Resilience of young adults living with mental disorders in the City of Tshwane, South Africa.Health SA = SA Gesondheid · 2025Article
- Factors influencing nutritional literacy among rural older adults: a cross-sectional survey based on the theory of planned behavior.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- A Bio-Psycho-Social Approach to Understanding Optimism and Pessimism in Response to Stress.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2024Article
- Accelerated Brain Aging Mediates the Association Between Psychological Profiles and Clinical Pain in Knee Osteoarthritis.The journal of pain · 2024Article
- Investigation of Internalized Weight-Related Stigma: Progression to Dietary Addiction and the Role of Stress.Cureus · 2024Article
- A cross-sectional study on the moderating effect of self-efficacy on the relationship between sociodemographic variables and nutrition literacy among older adults in rural areas of North Sichuan.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesGrowing evidence supports optimism as a health asset, yet how optimism influences well-being and health remains uncertain. We evaluated 1 potential pathway-the association of optimism with daily stress processes-and tested 2 hypotheses. The stressor exposure hypothesis posits that optimism would preserve emotional well-being by limiting exposure to daily stressors. The buffering hypothesis posits that higher optimism would be associated with lower emotional reactivity to daily stressors and more effective emotional recovery from them.
methodsParticipants were 233 men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study who completed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Revised Optimism-Pessimism scale in 1986/1991 and participated in up to three 8-day daily diary bursts in 2002-2010 (age at first burst: M = 76.7, SD = 6.5). Daily stressor occurrence, positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA) were assessed nightly. We evaluated the hypotheses using multilevel structural equation models.
resultsOptimism was unrelated to emotional reactivity to or recovery from daily stressors. Higher optimism was associated with higher average daily PA (B = 2.31, 95% Bayesian credible interval [BCI]: 1.24, 3.38) but not NA, independent of stressor exposure. Lower stressor exposure mediated the association of higher optimism with lower daily NA (indirect effect: B = -0.27, 95% BCI: -0.50, -0.09), supporting the stressor exposure hypothesis. DISCUSSION: Findings from a sample of older men suggest that optimism may be associated with more favorable emotional well-being in later life through differences in stressor exposure rather than emotional stress response. Optimism may preserve emotional well-being among older adults by engaging emotion regulation strategies that occur relatively early in the emotion-generative process.
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