Optimism, self-mastery, and symptoms of depression in women professionals.
- 1 January 1990
- journal article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Vol. 59 (1) , 132-139
- https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.59.1.132
Abstract
The construct validity and predictive utility of dispositional optimism were examined in a sample of 192 women professionals. By using covariance structure modeling with latent variables, opotimism (Scheier & Carver, 1985) and self-mastery (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978) were found to be empirically distinct, although substantially correlated, constructs. Furthermore, although optimism and self-mastery were significant and negatively correlated with symptoms of depression, only self-mastery was independently associated with symptom levels. In addition, no evidence was found that optimism and self-mastery interact to influence depressive symptoms. These results suggest that the apparent predictive power of optimism may derive from its substantial overlap with self-mastery. Implications for the assessment and interpretation of optimism and self-mastery are discussed.Keywords
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