Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Although the optimism literature diverges in its prediction of coping responses, recent research indicates that dispositional optimism and domain-specific optimism can interact to predict reactions to health threats.Specifically, individuals scoring high in dispositional optimism and low in domain-specific optimism appear to be the most responsive to health threats, whereas those scoring high in both forms of optimists appear to be the least responsive.Currently, only one study has examined the circumstances under which this interactive effect occurs.Furthermore, no study has examined the mechanisms underlying this interactive effect.For the present investigation, threat distance was examined as a moderating variable.Further, level of information processing was proposed as a mediating variable.In a Pilot Study (N = 64), participants read about a looming threat or a distant threat and completed two measures capturing level of iv information processing.Preliminary evidence supported the notion that dispositional and domain-specific optimism interact to predict level of information processing in the face of a looming (but not distant) threat.For the Main Study (N = 153), the procedure was nearly identical with the inclusion of three diverse measures of coping.Unlike the Pilot Study, level of information processing was not predicted by the optimism measures in the Main Study.The predicted three-way interaction was revealed on one of the coping measures (i.e., minimization).Specifically, both forms of optimism combine to predict the minimization of a threat when participants faced a looming threat.The other two coping measures did not yield this same effect.Future directions and limitations are discussed.
Author: Stephanie L. Fowler
Institution: University of Toledo
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2206650677