Optimism and social support: The providers’ perspective

Abstract

It has been presumed that the beneficial health effects of optimism are mediated by social support provided by the social environment. To further analyze this assumption, in two experiments (N = 240 and N = 120) social responses toward optimists, pessimists, and realists were examined. Participants listened to tape-recorded conversations in which optimistic, pessimistic and realistic targets reported how they were dealing with a stressful situation before completing a questionnaire assessing (a) their evaluation of the target's behavior and personality, (b) their attraction to the target, and (c) their willingness to provide the target with social support. Optimistic and realistic targets were viewed more favorably than pessimistic targets, while the behavior of realists was regarded as being more adequate than that of optimists. However, the more positive evaluation of optimists and realists compared to pessimists was not accompanied by a greater willingness to provide them with social support.

Keywords:

• Optimism
• pessimism
• realism
• social attraction
• social support
• support provider

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Grant We 1779/4-1 from the German Research Foundation (DFG) awarded to Hannelore Weber and Britta Renner. The authors would like to thank Katrin Matiba, Kirsten Schweinberger, and Mathias Stamm for their help with data collection.

Notes

Note

1.  The prototypical optimistic, pessimistic, and realistic behavior patterns were identified in a multi-level procedure based on a modified version of the act frequency approach (Buss & Craik, 1983). The behavior patterns consisted of situation-specific thoughts, feelings, goals, and actions that laypersons nominated as prototypical and distinctive coping responses of optimists, pessimists, and realists.