TY  - JOUR
A1  - Li, Wen-Dong
A1  - Li, Shuping
A1  - Fay, Doris
A1  - Frese, Michael
T1  - Reciprocal Relationships Between Dispositional Optimism and Work Experiences: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Investigation
JF  - Journal of applied psychology
N2  - Previous research on dispositional optimism has predominantly concentrated on the selection effect of dispositional optimism on predicting work outcomes. Recent research, however, has started to examine the socialization effect of life experiences on fostering dispositional optimism development. Extrapolating primarily from the TESSERA framework of personality development (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017) and the literature on dispositional optimism, the current study represents a first attempt to reconcile the 2 seemingly contrasting perspectives. We proposed and examined change-related reciprocal relationships between dispositional optimism and work experience variables including income, job insecurity, coworker support. and supervisor support. Latent change score modeling of data from a five-wave longitudinal study demonstrated that dispositional optimism resulted in decreases in job insecurity, and the decreased job insecurity in turn promoted further increases in dispositional optimism later on. Furthermore, income gave rise to increases ill dispositional optimism at a later point in time. but not vice versa. No significant relationships were observed between dispositional optimism and coworker and supervisor support. The findings provide a cautionary note to the majority of previous research based on cross-sectional and lagged designs that assumes causal effects of dispositional optimism on work outcomes. They also showcase the importance of examining personality change in organizational research and enrich our understanding of a more nuanced dynamic interplay between the optimistic employee and the work environment.
KW  - optimism
KW  - work experience
KW  - career
KW  - personality change
KW  - reciprocal relationship
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000417
SN  - 0021-9010
SN  - 1939-1854
VL  - 104
IS  - 12
SP  - 1471
EP  - 1486
PB  - American Psychological Association
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tetzner, Julia
A1  - Becker, Michael
T1  - How Being an Optimist Makes a Difference: The Protective Role of Optimism in Adolescents' Adjustment to Parental Separation
JF  - Social psychological and personality science
N2  - This longitudinal study of N = 1,566 adolescents investigated the protective role of optimism in adjustment to parental separation, focusing on two salient challenges faced by adolescents, namely academic achievement and self-esteem. Based on latent change models, the results indicated associations between parental separation and short-term declines in academic achievement as well as short-term and longer term declines in self-esteem. Although optimism in general showed positive associations with academic achievement and self-esteem, its role as a protective factor proved to be particularly important for academic achievement in adjustment following parental separation.
KW  - parental separation
KW  - optimism
KW  - academic achievement
KW  - self-esteem
KW  - longitudinal study
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550614559605
SN  - 1948-5506
SN  - 1948-5514
VL  - 6
IS  - 3
SP  - 325
EP  - 333
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - Thousand Oaks
ER  -