Which optimism in health psychology?

The aim of this article is to allow a better analysis of various conception s of optimism in the field of Health Psychology. The literature is critical ly reviewed concerning dispositional optimism (Scheier & Carver, 1985) and "unreaiistic" optimism (Weinstein, 1980). We illustrate our purpose with em pirical results taken from data collected in a sample of 345 young adults. The first psychometric analyses of a French version of the LOT-R (dispositi onal optimism) show that the instrument consists of two independent dimensi ons, an observation in Line with current criticisms in the literature. Expl oration of interrelations suggests that unrealistic optimism is to be relat ed to the lack of dispositional pessimism and that a clear conceptual diffe rence must be made between optimism as a trait and optimism as a vulnerabil ity appraisal.