Marco Antonio T.

Quizon
Grade 11 (STEM) – Louis Pasteur

Optimism: A Key for Better Life

Conversano, Ciro et al. (2010, May 14). Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being.
Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894461/

INTRODUCTION:
The article “Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being” written by Ciro Conversano,
Alessandro Rotondo, Elena Lensi, Olivia Della Vista, Francesca Arpone, and Mario Antonio Reda was first
presented on May 2010 in online edition of the Bentham Open. The article introduces and examines the
impact of being optimistic on the mental and physical well-being of a person.

The article talked about how being optimistic affects the people’s mental and physical well-being as
well as how life runs with optimism. The article studies the effectiveness of optimism as a psychological
phenomenon, leading to various theoretical formulations of the same concept, conceptualized as
“disposition”, “attributional style”, “cognitive bias”, or “shared illusion”. In the article, the authors explore the
“optimism” concept and its relations with mental health, physical health, coping, quality of life and adaptation
of purpose, and health lifestyle and risk perception. Those relationships are critically evaluated and expounded
as the article continues for the improvement of life.

CRITIQUE:
The authors introduce the article which they define optimism as the inclination to hope and to the
tendency to believe that we live in “the best of all possible worlds”. They relevantly use the theodicy of
German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s “Voltaire’s Candide”. According to the authors, the
effectiveness of optimism as a psychological phenomenon, leading to various theoretical formulations of the
same concept, understood as “disposition”, “attributional style”, “cognitive bias”, or “shared illusion”. They
even rely on the statements of Scheier and Carver which theorized the “disposition” towards optimism in their
studies, called “dispositional optimism”, considering it is a characteristic of a balanced personality that affects
the way people come to terms with current, past and future events in life, in time and in different situations.
They purposely used also the study of by Peterson and Seligman, that were prevalently directed towards the
understanding of the psychological bases of pessimism, lead to conception of its opposite, optimism, as an
“attributional style” which characterized by the tendency to believe that negative events are inconstant,
external, and specific. On the last view of the authors through optimism, they refer to the viewpoint of Social
Cognition which sustains that optimism is the consequence of a cognitive underestimation of risk, in other
words, a “bias” for the Self. Here, they used the study of Weinstein which defined this phenomenon as
“unrealistic optimism”. Optimistic bias is not a personality trait such as dispositional optimism, but rather a
systematic cognitive distortion of one's own probability of negative events being taken into account. In total,
the authors acquire reliable sources and other studies to improve, support and provide more relevant
information on the article. They used other’s knowledge to expound better and give a more in-depth
explanation on the topic.

Aside from the introduction of the authors through optimism, they formulate and explore more about
optimism through underlying the concepts of optimism and its relations with mental health, physical health,
coping, quality of life and adaptation of purpose, and health lifestyle and risk perception. They used those
relationships to know the connection of optimism through various topics like mental and physical health of a
person.

With the relationship of optimism and mental health, the authors described the positive and negative
effects of optimism to mental health. They also used recent studies which have found an inverse correlation
between optimism and depressive symptoms and also between optimism and suicidal ideation. As such,
optimism seems to have an important moderating role in the association between feelings of loss of hope and
suicidal ideation. In relation to this, the authors supply another view by Van der Velden and Giltay et al. which
stated the comparison of optimists and pessimists in the existence of having a strong mental health. It is said
that pessimists nurtured little hope for the future and were more at risk for depressive and anxiety disorders,
with subsequent impairment of social functioning and quality of life. Here, the authors provide more general
view on the connection of mental health and optimism and even give some treatment to promote mental
health.

Another relationship is the relation between optimism and physical health, Here the authors proudly
tell that optimism predicted less probability of mortality in general and of cardiovascular mortality in
particular. These data have been confirmed in a subsequent longitudinal study on a population of males aged
between 64 - 84 years in which an inverse correlation was reported between dispositional optimism and the
risk of cardiovascular death. They provide some research to validate their own opinion. Despite giving some
benefits of optimism to the physical health, the authors are not sensitive with some cases like presenting the
side of the AIDS patients telling that they are less optimistic. It seems that they are biased on the part that
only healthy people are optimistic. Since many studies have found that optimism is correlated with better
physical well-being compared to pessimism, they are only focused on the fact that healthy people are
optimistic.

In the relationship of optimism, coping, and quality of life and adaptation of purpose, shows that
optimism contributes to the life conditions of an individual (health, wealth, social conditions) and satisfaction
of personal desires, measured on a scale of personal values. The authors added that people are dealing with a
multidimensional construct that integrates objective and subjective indicators, a wide range of varying
contexts of life and individual values. Here, the authors have outlined the importance on quality of life of an
individual’s capacity to adapt and modify his/her own objectives according to different situations. In
agreement, they said that it is possible to avoid or reduce the negative psychological and physical
repercussions consequent to the non-achievement of a goal through a process of adaptive self-regulation
targeted at disengaging oneself from an unrealizable goal and concentrating efforts instead on more
attainable objectives. Thus, people with optimism have better quality of life and may have the life that can
enjoy. Authors are very evaluative on supplying their ideas and facts.

Last relationship is the relationship of optimism, health lifestyle and risk perception. The authors said
that one way in which optimism may significantly influence physical well-being is through promotion of a
healthy lifestyle. The authors added that optimism facilitates adaptive behaviors and cognitive responses that
consent negative information to be elaborated more efficiently and that are associated with greater flexibility
and problem-solving capacity. These coping strategies are in turn predictive of behaviors targeted at avoiding,
and if necessary, facing positively, health problems. A recent cohort study which examined 545 males aged
between 64 – 84 for fifteen years revealed a significant inverse relation between dispositional optimism and
death for cardio-vascular diseases, with a reduction of 50% of the risk of cardio-vascular death in the
optimistic individuals. They elaborated more that optimism affects how people encourage to have a healthy
lifestyle. They impart a more comprehensive data to addressed the benefits of optimism.

The authors contributed a lot on the said article and truly values how optimism affects several aspects
of a person, maybe in mental or physical health. They are eager to give and deliver information as much as
they can for the readers to remember all the said ideas. They perfectly showed how optimism exert influence
on the quality of life and how being optimistic gives an ideal life to be lived. All advantages of optimism are
reliable and all comparison between optimism and pessimism are essential.

CONCLUSION:
In life, optimism is a propensity to expect positive things. It is evident from the literature reviewed here
that optimism is a mental attitude that greatly affects physical and mental health, as well as dealing with daily
social and working life. Optimists are substantially more effective than pessimists in aversive events and when
major life goals are compromised through adaptive control of personal priorities and growth and by the use of
constructive coping strategies.

This review examined the article “Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being” by Ciro
Conversano et al. The overall thought of this review is to impart how being optimistic positively affect the
people’s mental health, physical health, coping strategies, healthy lifestyle and risk perception, adaptation of
purpose, and most of all the quality of life. It is very true that optimism is a trait that everyone should acquire
and a key for the people’s better life.