Dispositional Optimism, Coping, and Stress:  Extensions     and Mechanisms of Operation
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{'SignBlockName': 'Jean B. Intermaggio', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
For the past several years, Carver and Scheier have been trying                 to understand the processes that underlie people's purposive                    (goal-directed) actions.  In developing a model of "behavioral                  self-regulation," they have been most interested in the recent                  past in examining the role played by the person's expectancies                  of success in dealing with problems that are encountered.  In                   general, this research has shown that the positivity of one's                   expectancies serves to determine in an important way whether                    one will continue to persist in the face of adversity, or give                  up instead.  This finding becomes most interesting when one                     realizes that these "expectancy effects" occur independently of                 the person's actual likelihood of dealing with the problem                      successfully--i.e., independent of the person's abilities,                      skills, and facilitative environmental resources.                                                                                                               One limitation of previous work has been its focus on                           expectancies of a somewhat restricted sort--e.g., the person's                  expectation of being able to solve a particular task                            successfully, or of being able to execute a set of specific                     actions within a particular behavioral domain.  More recently,                  Carver and Scheier have become interested in examining how the                  person's generalized outcome expectancies effect his or her                     motivational efforts.                                                                                                                                           Previous research by these researchers and others has begun to                  document the benefits that generalized expectancies can have on                 the coping process, when those generalized expectancies are                     positive in nature.  This research builds on prior studies of                   dispositional optimism-pessimism by extending the generality of                 the findings, and by attempting to isolate and examine some                     specific mechanisms whereby optimism might be having its                        effects.  During this next period of funding, several new                       coping contexts will be examined, ranging from recovery from                    coronary artery bypass surgery to recovery from cancer surgery.                 All of the studies have been designed to provide information                    about underlying mechanisms, as well as simply examine whether                  or not a sense of optimism really pays off.  Taken together,                    the proposed set of studies should facilitate understanding of                  the coping process in general, and the role that dispositional                  optimism plays in it.
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[{'Code': '1332', 'Text': 'Social Psychology'}, {'Code': '9120', 'Text': 'CROSS-DIRECTORATE PROGRAMS'}]
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