This article explores the implications that dispositional optimism holds for physical well-being. Research is reviewed that links optimism to a number of different positive health-relevant outcomes, ranging from the development of physical symptoms to recovery from coronary artery bypass surgery. Additional findings are described which suggest that these beneficial effects are partly due to differences between optimists and pessimists in the strategies that they use to cope with stress. A number of other potential mediators are also discussed, including some that are physiologic in nature. The article closes with a discussion of the relationships between our own theoretical account of the effects of optimism and several other conceptual approaches.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 44. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 October 2026.
All research outputs
#1,132,760
of 32,431,134 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Personality
#209
of 1,534 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1,845
of 116,505 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Personality
#20
of 310 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,431,134 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,534 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 26.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 116,505 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 310 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
