Optimism

• One’s expectancy that good things rather than bad will happen

• When a goals is of sufficient value, the individual would produce an expectancy about attaining that goal

• Stable trait independent form self-efficacy

• Attribution: the process by which individuals explain the causes of behavior and events

• The optimist uses adaptive causal attributions to explain negative experiences/events

• Makes external, variable, and specific attributions for failure-like events rather than internal, stable, and global attributes

Childhood Antecedents of Optimism

• There is a genetic basis of optimism

• Optimism can stem from childhood experiences that foster trust and secure attachments to parental figures

Measures of Optimism

• Life Optimism Test (LOT)

• Index of Optimism

  • self-mastery, self-esteem

  • can predict outcomes related to coping and adjustment

What can Optimism Predict?

• staring college

• performing in work situations

• caring for Alzheimer’s patients

• coping with cancer

• coping in general

Hope

• defined as a goal-directed thinking in which the person utilizes pathways of thinking (the capacity to find ways to desired goals) and agency thinking (motivations to use these ways)

• If there’s a will, there’s a way.

Childhood Antecedents of Hope

• Hope has no hereditary contribution but rather a learned cognitive set about goal-directed thinking

• inherent part of parenting

• components of hopeful that are in place by the age of 2

• strong attachment to caregivers is crucial for imparting hope

Can Hope be Measured?

• Hope Scale

• Children’s Hope Scale

• State Hope Scale

Hope can predict…

• academics, sports, physical health, adjustment, psychotherapy

Collective Hope

• level of goal-directed thinking of a large group of people

• it is operative when several people join together to tackle a goal that would be impossible for any one person

Wisdom and Courage: 2 Universal Virtues

Wisdom

• involves an integration of knowledge, experience, and deep understanding that incorporates tolerance for the uncertainties of life as well as its ups and downs

Baltes Model of Wisdom

• Wisdom as Expert Knowledge

  • factual knowledge in fundamental pragmatics of life

  • knowledge in contexts of life and societal change

  • knowledge which considers uncertainties of life

  • procedural knowledge in fundamental pragmatics of life

  • knowledge which considers relativism values and goals

• Definition of Wisdom: good judgment and advice in important but uncertain areas of life

Wisdom

• found in persons seeking contemplative life (Sophia)

• practical nature (Phronesis)

• scientific understanding (Episteme)

• process used to balance personal interests with environmental context to achieve a common good

• this involves using tacit knowledge and personal values to form a judgment of or resolution for competing interests

Developing Wisdom

• resolving conflicts leads to enhanced discernment and judgment

• wisdom builds on knowledge, cognitive skill and personality characteristics

• exposure to wise role-models

• fluid intelligence, creativity, openness to experience, psychological mindedness, and general life-experiences orchestrate to produce wisdom

Characteristics of Wise People

• Sage: the carrier of wisdom

• Age: timeless and universal knowledge of wisdom

• includes the understanding of affect in problem-solving

• professional specialization does play a role in the manifestation of wisdom

Measurement of Wisdom

• Values in Action Classification of Strengths

• Wisdom Development Scale

  • self-knowledge

  • altruism

  • judgment

  • life knowledge/ life skills

  • emotional management

Courage

• defined as behavioral approach despite the experience of fear, in an effort to better understand its relationship with anxiety, fear, and behavior

• the planning and execution of great and expansive projects by putting forth ample and splendid effort of the mind

• Confidence, with these projects, the mind self-confidently collects itself with sure hope

• Patience, the voluntary and lengthy insurance of arduous and difficult things, which are honorable and useful

• Perseverance, ongoing persistence in a well-considered plan

Types of Courage

• Moral Courage: behavioral expression of authenticity in the face of discomfort, disapproval or rejection

• Physical Courage: maintenance of societal good by expression of physical behavior

• Vital Courage: perseverance through a disease or disability even when outcome is ambiguous

• Physiological Courage: strength in facing destructive habits

• Civil Courage: brave behaviors accompanied by anger and indignation that intends to reinforce societal and ethical norms without considering own social cost

Measures of Courage

• Woodard-Pury Courage Scale

  • one’s job or self-interest

  • one’s beliefs

  • individual social and/or moral situations

  • situations relevant to family

• Values in Action Inventory of Strengths