Children's dispositional optimism and pessimism: Social and emotional outcomes

Dispositional optimism and pessimism have important implications for children's adjustment. In the current investigation, the relative contributions of dispositional optimism and pessimism to children's social preference, somatic complaints, social problems and internalizing/externalizing behaviors were assessed. One hundred and five first-grade children completed self-report measures of optimism and internalizing symptoms and reported on their peers' optimism, aggression, and social preference. Teachers reported on children's optimism, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, somatic complaints, social problems, and aggression. Both teacher and child self-report measures of optimism failed to produce useful separate optimism and pessimism factors and thus the individual contribution of optimism versus pessimism could not be examined. Total optimism scores were calculated instead. Results indicated that teacher, peer and child self-report of optimism and peer report of pessimism were not related to indices of physical health. Teacher report of optimism was related to teacher report of aggression and externalizing problems, but not teacher report of social problems. Children who were more optimistic were less likely to be rated by teachers as aggressive or having externalizing problems. Neither teacher report of optimism nor child self-report of optimism were related to peer social preference. However, peer report of optimism predicted social preference. Future research in this area should focus on creating or refining a questionnaire to measure dispositional optimism and pessimism in young children as well as the development and evaluation of interventions designed to increase optimism and/or decrease pessimism.