554 v. AFFECTI vE PROCESSES
zheimer’s patients (Shifren & Hooker, 1995; 
for more extensive review of associations 
between optimism and physical health, see 
Mens, Scheier, & Carver, in press; Scheier 
& Carver, 2018).
Other researchers have also found that 
coping mediates the relationship between 
optimism and well-being in circumstances 
that might be seen as stressful but are more 
normative. For example, in a study that ex -
amined optimism, stress, depressive symp -
toms, and the development of social support 
among college freshmen, Brissette, Scheier, 
and Carver (2002) found that optimism pre -
dicted lower stress and depressive symptoms 
throughout the semester. In addition, those 
who were more optimistic at the beginning 
of the semester experienced greater increases 
in their social support networks by semes -
ter’s end. The findings of this study suggest 
that the better emotional outcomes of opti -
mists may be fostered partly by their ability 
to recruit social support networks. In an -
other study that lends additional support to 
that interpretation, the partners of optimists 
saw their partners as being more supportive 
in resolving conflicts than did the partners 
of pessimists (Srivastava, McGonigal, Rich -
ards, Butler, & Gross, 2006).
The influence of this individual-  difference 
variable on emotional well-being has a num -
ber of further reverberations in other spheres 
of life. For example, one study of Mexican 
American families found that mothers’ opti -
mism was related to lower levels of concur -
rent internalizing symptoms, which in turn 
were related to more positive involvement in 
parenting. Those differences in parental in -
volvement at Time 1 predicted better social 
adjustment among the children a year later 
(Z. Taylor et al., 2012).
Optimism, Coping, and Physical Well‑Being
Much of the research on optimism has been 
in health psychology. Some of it has examined 
optimism and physical well-being. The gen -
eral line of thinking behind this research is 
that optimists may be less reactive than pessi -
mists to the stresses of life, and better copers 
with those stresses. The lower physiological 
stress responses may (over many years) result 
in less physical wear and tear on the body. 
The result may be better physical health and even greater longevity. We describe in this 
section a couple of examples of this research 
(for broader treatment, see Carver & Schei -
er, 2017; Mens et al., in press; Rasmussen, 
Scheier, & Greenhouse, 2009; Scheier et al., 
in press; Scheier & Carver, 2018).
An important source of evidence linking 
optimism to lower levels of cardiovascular 
disease comes from the Women’s Health Ini -
tiative (WHI), a large-scale project studying 
quality of life, chronic disease, morbidity, 
and mortality across time among American 
women. Using WHI participants, Tindale et 
al. (2009) studied over 95,000 women over 
an 8-year period. All were free of cancer 
and cardiovascular disease at study entry. 
Optimists were less likely than pessimists to 
develop coronary heart disease (CHD), less 
likely to die from CHD-  related causes, and 
had lower total mortality across the 8 years 
of study. The advantage due to optimism 
ranged from 9% for incident cases of CHD 
to 30% for CHD-  related mortality.
Healing and immunity also appear to be 
affected by optimism. In one study, men were 
classified as “slow healers” or “fast healers” 
after a skin biopsy. Fast healers were more 
optimistic than slow healers (Ebrecht et al., 
2004). Optimism also has predicted better 
immune response to an influenza vaccine 
among older adults (Kohut, Cooper, Nicko -
laus, Russell, & Cunnick, 2002). Immune 
responses are tricky to interpret, though, be -
cause they are sometimes suppressed when 
there are other behavioral demands, in a 
process of conservation of energy (Seger -
strom, 2010). Under very high challenge, 
optimism has been related to lower, rather 
than higher, immune responses. This seems 
to suggest a pattern of greater engagement 
with demanding goals, resulting in sup -
pression of immune responses (Segerstrom, 
2005, 2006).
Concluding  Comments
In this chapter we have pointed to links be -
tween a model of the self-  regulation of ac -
tion and the experiences of stress and cop -
ing, along with some illustrations of how the 
concepts can be integrated. We pointed to 
conceptual links between the elements of the 
self- regulation model and two views of stress; 