Self-esteem, self-efficacy, and optimism as psychological resources among caregivers of people with dementia: findings from the IDEAL study
Ruth A. LamontCatherine QuinnSharon M. NelisAnthony MartyrJennifer RustedJohn V. HindleBryony LongdonLinda Clare
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ABSTRACT Objectives: Being a family caregiver, and in particular giving care to someone with dementia, impacts mental and physical health and potentially reduces the ability of caregivers to “live well.” This paper examines whether three key psychological resources—self-efficacy, optimism, and self-esteem—are associated with better outcomes for caregivers of people with dementia. Design and Participants: Caregivers of 1,283 people with mild-to-moderate dementia in the Improving the Experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life (IDEAL) project responded to measures of self-efficacy, optimism, and self-esteem, and “living well” (quality of life, life satisfaction, and well-being). Multivariate linear regression was used to examine the association between psychological resources and “living well”. Results: Self-efficacy, optimism, and self-esteem were all independently associated with better capability to “live well” for caregivers. This association persisted when accounting for a number of potential confounding variables (age group, sex, and hours of caregiving per day). Conclusions: Low self-efficacy, optimism, and self-esteem might present a risk of poor outcomes for caregivers of people with dementia. These findings encourage us to consider how new or established interventions might increase the psychological resilience of caregivers.It is not clear whether optimism moderates the effect of psychological interventions on cancer patients. The present paper analyzes whether optimism was related to the effectiveness of an intervention based on the potentiation of positive emotions in a sample of 24 colorectal cancer patients who received over chemotherapy. The results indicated that the intervention tended to improve the quality of life in one of the dimensions of the EORTC questionnaire, but this improvement was not related to patients' levels of optimism. It seems that the possible beneficial effects of this psychological intervention do not depend on patients having greater or lesser degrees of optimism. However more research is needed in patients with other tumors or other treatments to determine the possible moderating role of optimism on the effects of psychological interventions in the health field.
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Extant research shows that entrepreneurs are typically too optimistic about their ventures’ prospects and that this optimism hampers performance. We account for the underlying cognitive mechanisms by (i) analyzing how dispositional optimism shapes the updating of entrepreneurs’ expectations about their performance after receiving a feedback, and (ii) exploring the relation between optimism and effectiveness of innovation. We use unique archival data combined with a laboratory experiment involving 100 entrepreneurs. Our evidence indicates that dispositional optimism impairs belief updating in response to negative feedback. Moreover, dispositional optimism triggers a discrepancy – between inputs and innovation outputs – that reduces a firm’s innovation effectiveness.
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