PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Effects of Optimism, Pessimism, and Trait Anxiety on Ambulatory Blood Pressure and Mood During Everyday Life

This study tested whether disposition ^ measures of optimism, pessimism, and anxiety affected ambu-latory blood pressure (BP) and mood and whether any cardiovascular effects of dispositions were moderated by mood. Pessimistic and anxious adults had higher BP levels and felt more negative and less positive than did optimists or low anxious adults throughout the monitoring. The few times that optimists did feel negative were associated with levels of BP as high as those observed among pessimists or anxious individuals, regardless of their mood. To the extent that trait anxiety measures neuroticism, these findings suggest that neuroticism is directly related to health indicators rather than simply to illness behavior. Furthermore, the results suggest that pessimism has broad physiological and psychological consequences. Optimists are people who expect positive outcomes. As a con-sequence, they expect to cope effectively with everyday stress and challenge, whereas pessimists are those who expect negative out-comes and do not expect to cope successfully (for reviews, see Scheier & Carver, 1985, 1987, 1992). Optimists are likely to persist in their goal-directed efforts, whereas pessimists are mor