Effects of optimism, pessimism, and trait anxiety on ambulatory blood pressure and mood during everyday life

This study tested whether dispositional measures of optimism, pessimism, an d anxiety affected ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and mood and whether any cardiovascular effects of dispositions were moderated by mood. Pessimistic and anxious adults had higher BP levels and felt more negative and less pos itive than did optimists or low anxious adults throughout the monitoring. T he few times that optimists did feel negative were associated with levels o f BP as high as those observed among pessimists or anxious individuals, reg ardless of their mood. To the extent that trait anxiety measures neuroticis m these findings suggest that neuroticism is directly related to health ind icators rather than simply to illness behavior. Furthermore, the results su ggest that pessimism has broad physiological and psychological consequences .