Optimism and stress: an African-American college student perspective

College Student Journal, June, 2003 by Debora R. Baldwin, Lana N. Chambliss, Kerry Towler

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of life event stress on African-American college students as a function of optimism. One hundred and six African-American college students attending a Historically Black College participated in this study. After obtaining informed consent, all participants were administered the questionnaire package (Student Stress Scale, Perceived Stress, Life Orientation Test, and demographics). As expected, individuals who scored high on measures of optimism reported significantly less perceived stress than their pessimistic counterparts. Underclassman reported more academic stress than upperclassman. These findings suggest that future studies should examine the role of optimism and other "buffer of stress" variables within the context of an African-American population.

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Introduction

Although the experience of stress has been shown to influence general well being, individual differences exist with regard to this phenomenon. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) have conceptualized life stress as a person-environment transaction. This model incorporates individual differences with respect to the perception of threat, desirability, personal resources, ability to cope, and response options (Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend, 1984). For example, racial and ethnic differences have been found among adolescents with regard to life stress exposure, the appraisal of negative impact of life stress, and coping resources (Prelow and Guarnaccia, 1997). Furthermore, these differences were not related to family socioeconomic status.

Within the last decade, researchers have begun to investigate a host of positive psychological factors (e.g., optimism, spirituality, social support) that have been shown to influence general well-being. In particular, optimism is linked to desirable outcomes such as good morale, achievement, improved health, and coping with adversity (e.g., Chang, 1996; Caver, Pozo, Harris, Noriega, Scheier, Robinson, Ketcham, Moffat, and Clark, 1993; Lin and Peterson, 1990). For example, Borawski, Kinney, and Kahana (1996) found that elderly adults who were more optimistic about their health were less likely to die within the 3-year study period. Moreover, Aspinwall and Taylor (1992) reported that optimism predicted adjustment to the first semester of college, independent of other variables such as locus of control and self-esteem.

According to Scheier and Carver (1987), dispositional optimism refers to the degree to which an individual holds positive expectancies for their future. More specifically, individuals who believe that the desired goal is attainable will overcome adversity to reach that goal. These individuals, in turn, expect a positive outcome from their effort and are properly called optimists. Pessimists are people who tend to hold more negative expectations, and their desired goals are viewed as unattainable. Thus, they will cease striving in the face of adversity. According to Tiger (1979), optimism is predicated on what an individual regards as desirable. Thus optimism, conceptualized as individual differences, may influence the cognitive appraisal of an event as stressful (Peterson, 2000).

To our knowledge, empirical studies examining the association between dispositional optimism and stress within a college population of African-American students are sparse. Most of the published research in this area has been based largely on Euro-American college samples (Graham, 1992). For example, Scheier and Carver (1992) conducted a study on adaptation to college life. They measured a number of outcome variables including optimism and perceived stress. These researchers found that optimists became significantly less stressed, depressed and lonely over time compared to their pessimistic counterparts.

It is well documented that Africian American students are more likely to drop out of college than their nonminority counterparts (e.g., Nettles, Thoeny, and Gosman, 1986; Wilson, 1994). According to Cross (1993), historically black colleges tend to have a highly disappointing student graduation rate. It has been suggested that minority students, in general, are more likely to express apprehension about the academic rigors of college compared with their nonminority counterparts (Eimers and Pike, 1997). Moreover, minority students tend to encounter common experiences that are different from those of nonminority status (Nora and Cabrera, 1996; Terenzini, Rendon, Upcraft, Millar, Allison, Gregg, and Jalomo, 1994). These experiences (e.g., financial problems, academic integration, parental encouragement) may interfere with the attainment of a desired goal--college degree.

Dispositional optimism may help students deal with stressful situations better by getting them to use their resources more effectively. The purpose of the present study was to document one aspect of academic integration, levels of stress, within an African-American population. Using the transactional model of stress, it was hypothesized that optimistic students would report less stress than their pessimistic counterparts.