Monday, May 21, 2012
What is optimistim?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines optimism
as having "hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful
outcome of something; a tendency to take a favourable or hopeful
view." The word is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning
"best." Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the world,
ultimately means one expects the best possible outcome from any given
situation. This is usually referred to in psychology as dispositional optimism. Researchers sometimes operationalize the term differently depending on their research, however. For example, Martin Seligman and his fellow researchers define it in terms of explanatory style,
which is based on the way one explains life events. As for any trait
characteristic, there are several ways to evaluate optimism, such as
various forms of the Life Orientation Test, for the original definition
of optimism, or the Attributional Style Questionnaire designed to
test optimism in terms of explanatory style. While the heritability of optimism is largely debatable, most researchers agree that it seems to be a biological trait to some small degree, but it is also thought that optimism has more to do with environmental factors, making it a largely learned trait.[1]
It has also been suggested that optimism could appear to be a
hereditary trait because it is actually a manifestation of combined
traits that are mostly heritable, like intelligence and temperament.[2] Optimism may also be linked to health.
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