TY - JOUR
T1 - Optimism and pessimism are related to different components of the stress response in healthy older people
AU - Puig-Perez, Sara
AU - Villada, Carolina
AU - Pulopulos, Matias M.
AU - Almela, Mercedes
AU - Hidalgo, Vanesa
AU - Salvador, Alicia
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science ( PSI2010/21343 , PSI2013-46889 , FPU AP2010-1830 , FPU/00195 , FPU AP2009-4713 , FPU12/04597 and FPI/BES-2008-004224 ) and Generalitat Valenciana ( PROMETEOII2015-020 , ISIC/2013/001 ). These grants had no further role in the study design, the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, the writing of the report, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2015/11/1
Y1 - 2015/11/1
N2 - Some personality traits have key importance for health because they can affect the maintenance and evolution of different disorders with a high prevalence in older people, including stress pathologies and diseases. In this study we investigated how two relevant personality traits, optimism and pessimism, affect the psychophysiological response of 72 healthy participants (55 to 76. years old) exposed to either a psychosocial stress task (Trier Social Stress Test, TSST) or a control task; salivary cortisol, heart rate (HR) and situational appraisal were measured. Our results showed that optimism was related to faster cortisol recovery after exposure to stress. Pessimism was not related to the physiological stress response, but it was associated with the perception of the stress task as more difficult. Thus, higher optimism was associated with better physiological adjustment to a stressful situation, while higher pessimism was associated with worse psychological adjustment to stress. These results highlight different patterns of relationships, with optimism playing a more important role in the physiological component of the stress response, and pessimism having a greater effect on situational appraisal.
AB - Some personality traits have key importance for health because they can affect the maintenance and evolution of different disorders with a high prevalence in older people, including stress pathologies and diseases. In this study we investigated how two relevant personality traits, optimism and pessimism, affect the psychophysiological response of 72 healthy participants (55 to 76. years old) exposed to either a psychosocial stress task (Trier Social Stress Test, TSST) or a control task; salivary cortisol, heart rate (HR) and situational appraisal were measured. Our results showed that optimism was related to faster cortisol recovery after exposure to stress. Pessimism was not related to the physiological stress response, but it was associated with the perception of the stress task as more difficult. Thus, higher optimism was associated with better physiological adjustment to a stressful situation, while higher pessimism was associated with worse psychological adjustment to stress. These results highlight different patterns of relationships, with optimism playing a more important role in the physiological component of the stress response, and pessimism having a greater effect on situational appraisal.
KW - Aging
KW - Optimism
KW - Pessimism
KW - Stress response
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84947492314&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.09.002
DO - 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.09.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 26348260
AN - SCOPUS:84947492314
SN - 0167-8760
VL - 98
SP - 213
EP - 221
JO - International Journal of Psychophysiology
JF - International Journal of Psychophysiology
IS - 2
ER -