Research On The Relationship Among Optimism, Explanatory Style And Psychological Well-being

Optimism, psychological well-being which are the subjects in positive psychology, are individual's significant positive feelings. Explanatory style has a close relationship with psychological health adjustment. Both of optimism and explanatory style can inflect individual's psychological well-being, inflect his satisfaction with life and depression, inflect his mental health. The present study aimed to examine the relation among optimism, explanatory style and psychological well-being of the undergraduates, so that we can not only know more about their psychology, but also instnict them to become more optimistic and get scientific and correct explanatory style, improve the level of their mental health, and promote the healthy developing of their individuality.Based on the review of the intension, antecedents and development of optimism and explanatory style, this paper studied two questions. That is: 1. Through open questionnaire, forecast and formal test, optimism and explanatory questionnaires were drawn up. 2. This paper measured 350 participants whose grades vary from grade 1 to grade 4 in college, exploring the relation among optimism, explanatory style, satisfaction with life and depression. The results showed that:1. Optimism had a significant positive correlation with satisfaction with life, a significant negative correlation with explanatory style and depression. Explanatory style had a significant positive correlation with depression, a significant negative correlation with optimism and satisfaction with life.2. The optimistist's level of optimism and satisfaction with life were significant higher than pessimist, and their level of depression were significant lower than pessimist.3. On internality of explanatory style, optimist and pessimist had not significant differences on low, middle, and high controllable level events.4. On stability and globality of explanatory style, the pessimist had more pessimistic explanatory styles than the optimist when facing middle and high controllable level events, although they had not significant different explanatory styles when facing low controllable level events.5. Optimism was a mediator variable which could mediate the relationship between explanatory style and depression, the relationship between explanatory style and satisfaction with life. Optimism had relatively direct effect on depression and satisfaction with life. There existed a bi-directional influence between optimism and explanatory style.