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Thursday February 19 Avoid Pessimism, Be Happy NEW YORK (Reuters) -- While the "power of positive thinking" is encouraged as a way to improve health and well being, new research shows that it may be more important to avoid negative thinking. Researchers at Ohio State University in Columbus studied 224 middle-aged and older adults, half of whom were caregivers for a relative with Alzheimer's disease. At one-year intervals for three years, participants reported their degree of optimism and pessimism, negative life events, depression, stress, anxiety and other issues. The researchers found that optimism and pessimism, previously thought to be linked, are actually independent factors that individually influence stressed and nonstressed people. And one factor is more foretelling than the other. "Of greatest interest, we found that pessimism, not optimism, was a prospective predictor of psychological and physical health outcomes a year later," write Susan Robinson-Whelen and colleagues in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Specifically, pessimism predicted anxiety, perceived stress and self-rated health for the next year, while optimism did not predict anything. The researchers explain that negative life events may not impact caregivers as much as noncaregivers because caregivers' outlook for the future is already influenced by the stress of caring for an ill family member. Previous research has shown that optimism may affect people's success in alcohol treatment programs, with recovery from coronary artery bypass surgery and breast cancer surgery, and in other health-related concerns. This new study, the authors conclude, emphasizes the need to also consider how pessimism affects such outcomes. SOURCE: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1997;73:1345-1353) Copyright © 1998 Reuters Limited. Judith Richards [log in to unmask]