12. personality, health, and coping
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Cross-Cultural Research
DOI: 10.1177/10693971093357292009;
2009; 43; 251 originally published online May 19,Cross-Cultural ResearchKwang Ng
Shyh Shin Wong, Boon Ooi Lee, Rebecca P. Ang, Tian P. S. Oei and AikPersonality, Health, and Coping: A Cross-National Study
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251
Cross-Cultural Research
Volume 43 Number 3
August 2009 251-279
2009 SAGE Publications
10.1177/1069397109335729
http://ccr.sagepub.comhosted at
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Authors Note: Funding for this research is facilitated partially by a research grant from theNational Institute of Education. We thank Veronica Leng from Ngee Ann Polytechnic for help-
ing with the data collection. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Shyh Shin Wong, Psychological Studies Academic Group, National Institute of Education,
Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616, Republic of
Singapore; e-mail:[email protected].
Personality, Health,and Coping
A Cross-National Study
Shyh Shin Wong
Boon Ooi Lee
Rebecca P. AngNanyang Technological University, Singapore
Tian P. S. OeiUniversity of Queensland, Australia
Aik Kwang NgSIM University, Singapore
This study explored group and relational differences in personality, health,
and coping across 189 Australian students and 243 Singaporean students.
Life Orientation TestRevised showed a one-factor structure for Australiansbut a two-factor structure for Singaporeans. Australians tended to be more
agreeable, more conscientious, more optimistic, more satisfied with their
lives, while Singaporeans tended to be more neurotic and more pessimistic.
Singaporeans tended to utilize less frequent adaptive and maladaptive coping
strategies. Neuroticism was a significant predictor for state-trait anxiety and
stress, while unipolar optimism was a significant predictor for life satisfac-
tion and unipolar pessimism was a significant predictor for trait anxiety for
both samples. Bipolar optimism was a significant predictor for trait anxiety
and life satisfaction for both samples whereas it was a significant predictorfor state anxiety for the Singaporean sample. Optimists, pessimists, and neu-
rotics in both samples tended to use different coping strategies. Limitations
and implications are discussed.
Keywords: extraversion; agreeableness; conscientiousness; neuroticism;
openness to experience; optimism; pessimism; anxiety; stress;
physical symptoms; life satisfaction; coping
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252 Cross-Cultural Research
Introduction
A growing body of studies suggests that dispositional optimism is ben-eficial for physical and psychological well-being as well as protecting
individuals from the negative effects of physical and psychological prob-
lems (Scheier & Carver, 1987, 1993; Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994,
2001). Dispositional optimism is one of the several theoretical perspectives
that frame the construct of optimism as an individual difference (Carroll,
Sweeny, & Shepperd, 2006; E. C. Chang, 2001a; Peterson, 2000). The
other theoretical constructs that are based on individual differences include
attributional or explanatory style and dispositional hope. Dispositional opti-mism has been defined as a form of positive thinking in the holding of
generalized positive outcome expectancies about the future. Conversely,
dispositional pessimism can be defined as generalized negative outcome
expectancies about the future.
Despite the cumulative evidence supporting the construct of disposi-
tional optimism as a promising psychological construct for understanding
health outcomes, insufficient attention has been paid to cross-cultural com-
parisons. First, studies on cross-cultural differences and generalizability ofprevious findings for different cultural groups are few. Most of the research
on optimism has been conducted in United Statesa Western individualis-
tic and egalitarian society (Hofstede, 1994). Second, there are more reported
studies of dispositional optimism conducted with Westerners than those
conducted with Easterners. Third, for the majority of cross-cultural studies
that were conducted, the focus was on group differences in optimism and
pessimism between Easterners and Westerners. However, group differences
tell us little about relational differences (E. C. Chang, 2001a). Fourth,
although emotions and associated coping approaches have been subjected
to intensive research, their relationships to larger personality constructs
have not been the subject of sufficient work in one culture, much less cross-
national research. And most of the few available cross-cultural studies are
based on different cultural groups within the same country rather than
cross-cultural differences between different countries. Cross-national cross-
cultural research offers a slightly different perspective compared to within-
national cross-cultural research in that people from different countries may
be exposed to greater sociopolitical differences compared to people fromthe same country. This perspective has been utilized by worldwide surveys
on values, stress, and happiness.
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Wong et al. / Personality, Health, and Coping 253
The Present Study
The present study focused on both types of cross-cultural studies in com-paring the findings between Australia and Singapore as an attempt to over-
come some of the limitations of previous research. In addition, the choice
of comparing Australia and Singapore may contribute new understanding to
the field of cross-cultural research in personality, health, and coping. First,
little research on personality, health, and coping had been carried out in both
countries, especially Singapore. Moreover, no study to date had compared
these two countries. Second, the present study allows comparison between
two countries, whose people have been found to differ on a number of psy-chological dimensions. For example, Australia has been found to be primar-
ily a Western individualistic and egalitarian society, whereas Singapore is
mainly an Asian collectivistic and elitist/hierarchical society (Hofstede, 1994).
Previous studies have also shown that tertiary students from Singapore
reported less frequent thoughts about life satisfaction and happiness than
Australian tertiary students (Diener, 2000). Second, although both countries
are located in the same region, with people who are mainly migrants who had
adopted a Western economic and cosmopolitan outlook, they differ sociopo-litically and ethnically. Australia is predominately populated by Caucasians
while Singapore is largely consisted of Chinese.
Cross-Cultural Group Differences
Dimensionality of optimism. The present study examined two cross-
cultural group differences. First, it explores the dimensionality of optimism as
measured by the revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) across the
Australian and Singaporean samples as there are divided views concerning
the dimensionality of optimism and pessimism as measured by Life Orientation
Test (LOT; Scheier & Carver, 1985) and LOT-R (Scheier et al., 1994) in
previous studies. Scheier and Carver (1985), who developed the construct of
dispositional optimism and the LOT, conceptualized optimism and pessi-
mism as polar opposites on a unidimensional (bipolar) continuum. The
unidimensional conceptualization assumes that a person cannot be both
optimistic and pessimistic but rather is either optimistic or pessimistic.
However, a number of American researchers (e.g., E. C. Chang, DZurilla,& Maydeu-Olivares, 1994; L. Chang & McBride-Chang, 1996; Marshall,
Wortman, Kusulas, Hervig, & Vickers, 1992) have found that the LOT
loaded onto two partially independent factors when subjected to exploratory
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254 Cross-Cultural Research
factor analyses. A Chinese version of the LOT (CLOT) was also found to
be bidimensional in nature (Cheng & Hamid, 1997).
As for the revised LOT, the dimensionality was found to be different fordifferent cultural samples. Lai and Yues (2000) confirmatory factor analy-
ses of the responses to Chinese LOT-R found support for a one-factor model
for the Hong Kong Chinese sample and a two-sample model for the main-
land Chinese sample. Taken together, these factor-analytic studies suggest
that the dimensionality of dispositional optimism as measured by LOT-R
varies across different samples.
Due to the mixed results on the dimensionality issue across different
samples, exploratory factor analyses were used to explore the dimensional-ity of LOT-R in the two cross-national samples in the present study. It was
hypothesized that there was a cross-national difference in the dimensional-
ity of LOT-R in the two samples (Hypothesis 1). We expected that the
result for the Singaporean sample would be a two-factor solution given that
Singaporeans were influenced by both the British as well as Asian heritage
while a one-factor solution could fit with the idea that the Caucasian
Australians tended to be influenced by just the British heritage alone.
Personality, health, and coping.The present study also examined cross-
national differences in mean scores for each variable studied in the present
study, namely, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism,
openness to experience, optimism, pessimism, state-trait anxiety, stress,
physical symptoms, life satisfaction, and coping. Past research had found
mixed results. E. C. Chang (2001a) found that Asian Americans were not
significantly lower in their levels of unipolar optimism compared to
European Americans. Similarly, there were no significant differences in
depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, use of problem solving, cogni-
tive restructuring, emotional expression, social support, wishful thinking,
and self-criticism. However, Asian Americans were found to be signifi-
cantly more pessimistic (unipolar scale) than European Americans. Asian
Americans also reported significantly more psychological symptoms and
used more problem avoidance and social withdrawal strategies to cope with
stress situations than did European Americans.
As for cross-national differences in the personality and mental health
dimensions, Eysenck and Chan (1982) found that adults in Hong Kong scoredhigher on psychoticism and social desirability and lower on extraversion than
did British adults. Furnham and Cheng (1999) also found that British stu-
dents reported higher levels of extraversion, happiness, and mental health. In
sum, it appears that in general, Asians tended to report more negativity than
Caucasians. Hence, it was hypothesized in the present study that there were
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some cross-cultural differences in the mean scores of the variables under
studied, with Singaporean students reporting more psychological problems
and less life satisfaction than Australian students (Hypothesis 2).
Cross-Cultural Relational Differences
The present study examined cross-cultural relational differences in the
relationship between optimism and selected mental health outcome vari-
ables in two ways. First, it explored the incremental unique value of the
extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to
experience, and optimism in predicting stress, state-trait anxiety, physicalsymptoms, and life satisfaction after controlling for age and gender across
the two countries. In addition to neuroticism, we also included additional
personality constructs in the five-factor model (FFM) of personality because
Boland and Cappeliez (1997) found that dispositional optimism may also
be related to other Big Five personality factors, such as extraversion.
Similarly, Fontaine, Manstead, and Wagner (1993) also proposed that the
construct of dispositional optimism has to be evaluated in the context of
higher-order personality domains (i.e., the Big Five) to help eliminate theuse of redundant personality variables.
Past research had found some cross-cultural relational differences. E. C.
Chang (1996a) conducted a series of separate stepwise regression analyses
to identify significant predictors of each maladjustment measure for Asian
Americans and European Americans. For Asian Americans, E. C. Chang
found that optimism, problem solving, and pessimism were the only signifi-
cant predictors for depressive symptoms and account for increasing amount
of variance in depressive symptoms, respectively. For psychological symp-
tomatology, social withdrawal and optimism were the only significant
predictors and account for increasing amount of variance in psychological
symptomatology, respectively. For physical symptoms, optimism and prob-
lem solving were the only significant predictors and account for increasing
amount of variance in physical symptoms, respectively.
For European Americans, the only significant predictors of depressive
symptoms found were pessimism, wishful thinking, optimism, and self-
criticism. These four predictors were found to account for increasing
amount of variance in depressive symptoms, respectively. For psychologi-cal symptomatology, pessimism, self-criticism, gender, and social withdrawal
were the only significant predictors and account for increasing amount of
variance in psychological symptomatology, respectively. For physical
symptoms, gender was the only significant predictor. In sum, one major
cross-cultural difference was that lack of optimism and pessimism were
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256 Cross-Cultural Research
predictors of psychological and physical maladjustment among Asian
Americans, whereas pessimism and lack of optimism were predictors of
psychological maladjustment among European Americans. In our presentstudy, we hypothesized that there were some cross-cultural differences in
the significant predictors accounting for variances in the two samples after
controlling for age and gender (Hypothesis 3).
Second, the present study explored the differences in the relationships
between optimism and neuroticism with coping across Australia and
Singapore. In one study, Scheier, Weintraub, and Carver (1986) found
positive correlations between optimism (measured by LOT) and problem-
focused coping, positive reinterpretation, acceptance/resignation, andseeking of social support (for men only). Optimism was negatively associ-
ated with denial and distancing. In another study, they found positive cor-
relations between optimism and problem-focused coping, suppression of
competing activities, and seeking social support. Optimism was negatively
associated with focusing on/expressing feelings and disengagement. Scheier
et al. (1994) found that positive correlations between optimism (LOT-R)
and active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, positive
reinterpretation and growth, seeking instrumental social support, seekingemotional social support, turning to religion, and focusing on and venting
of emotions, even after controlling for neuroticism. Optimism was nega-
tively associated with behavioral disengagement, even after controlling for
neuroticism. In sum, optimism was found to be positively correlated with
adaptive coping strategies and negatively correlated with adaptive coping
strategies, even after controlling for neuroticism. Unfortunately, for the
aforementioned classic studies, cross-cultural data were not collected or
analyzed.
As for cross-cultural relational differences between optimism and pes-
simism with coping, E. C. Chang (1996a) found different and similar pat-
terns of correlations for Asian Americans and European Americans. The
most striking difference found was that pessimism was found to be nega-
tively correlated with use of problem solving and expressing emotions for
European Americans. In contrast, pessimism was found to be correlated
positively with use of these coping strategies for Asian Americans.
Scheier et al. (1994) also used partial correlational analysis to explore
relationship between optimism and coping while controlling for neuroticism.In the present study, we hypothesized that there were some cross-cultural
differences in the partial correlational patterns (controlling for neuroticism)
between optimism and coping versus neuroticism and coping across
Australian and Singaporean samples (Hypothesis 4).
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Method
Participants
In all, 189 undergraduate respondents from Australia and 243 under-
graduate students from Singapore participated in the study. The mean age
in Australia is 19.02 years (SD=3.19), whereas mean age in Singapore is
17.85 years (SD=1.97). Participants in Australia were 68.8% (n=130)
female and 31.2% (n=59) male, whereas participants in Singapore were
66.3% (n=161) female and 33.7% (n=82) male.
Racial composition in Australia consists of 75.1% (n=
142) Caucasian,2.1% (n=4) Chinese, 0.5% (n=1) Indian, and 22.2% (n=42) who did not
indicate any ethnic identification. Racial composition in Singapore consists
of 66.7% (n = 162) Chinese, 13.2% (n = 32) Indian, 10.7% (n = 26)
Malaysian, 7.4% (n = 18) other racial groups (which includes all other
ethnic groups not listed), and 2.1% (n=5) who did not indicate any ethnic
identification.
Religious affiliation in Australia consists of 1.1% (n=2) Buddhists,
25.4% (n= 48) Christians, 0.5% (n= 1) Muslims, 28.6% (n= 54) no
religious affiliation, 39.2% (n=74) other religious affiliations, and 5.3%
(n=10) missing data, whereas religious affiliation in Singapore consists
8.2% (n= 20) Buddhists, 25.1% (n=61) Christians, 7% (n=17) Hindus,
18.1% (n=44) Muslims, 25.1% (n=61) no religious affiliation, 14% (n=34)
other religious affiliations, and 1.2% (n=3) missing data. Participation was
voluntary and responses were anonymous.
MeasuresBig Five Mini-Marker ScaleBrief Version. The Mini-Marker Scale
(Saucier, 1994) consists of 40 adjectives (8 adjectives for each of the five Big
Five traitsNeuroticism Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness,
and Conscientiousness), which may be positively worded or negatively
worded. This set of 40 adjectives was selected from Goldbergs (1992) 100
adjective markers for the Big Five factor structure. Participants were asked
to indicate how well a trait described himself or herself on a scale from
1 (trait does not describe me well) to 5 (trait describes me well). TheMini-Marker Scale has been demonstrated to have adequate reliability and
validity estimates (Saucier, 1994).
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258 Cross-Cultural Research
Life Orientation TestRevised. The Life Orientation TestRevised
(Scheier et al., 1994) was designed to measure dispositional optimism. It is
a shorter version of the LOT, with just 10 items (including 4 filler items),with responses that range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Of these, 3 items are positively worded and 3 are negatively worded. In the
present study, two scoring methods were utilized to derive either a unipolar
or unidimensional measurement of optimism or two bipolar or bidimen-
sional measurements of two separate but related constructs of optimism and
pessimism. For the bipolar measurement of optimism, the 3 negatively
worded items are reversed and added to the scores of the 3 positively
worded items. For the unipolar measurement of optimism, only the 3 posi-tively worded items are added. For the unipolar measurement of pessimism,
only 3 negatively worded items are added.
The revised instrument is more appropriate for the study as it has essen-
tially removed the content overlap with coping that is found in the earlier
LOT version. Scheier et al. (1994) reported that LOT and LOT-R showed
considerable overlap between the two measures at .95. The LOT-R has
been demonstrated to have adequate reliability and validity estimates (Scheier
et al., 1994).
State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The STAI is a 40-item instrument
developed by Spielberger (1983). This instrument consists of a 20-item trait
anxiety scale and a 20-item state anxiety scale. This inventory evaluates
feelings of apprehension, tension, nervousness, and worry, which increase
in response to physical danger and psychological stress. The State-Anxiety
Scale consists of 20 statements that respondents feel at the time of testing. The
Trait-Anxiety Scale consists of 20 statements that assess how respondents
generally feel. Respondents rate each statement on a Likert-type scale from
1 (not at all) to 4 (very much so). This instrument has adequate reliability
and validity estimates (Spielberger, 1983).
Stress scale. The stress scale is a seven-item scale taken from Depression,
Anxiety, and Stress Scales21 (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995).
Respondents indicated the frequency of feeling stressed on a 0 to 3 scale
ranging from 0 (did not apply to me at all) to 3 (applied to me very much
or most of the time). The DASS-21 has been shown to possess adequate
reliability and construct validity estimates. The stress scale has an alpha of
.90 (Henry & Crawford, 2005).
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Cohen-Hoberman Inventory of Physical Symptoms (CHIPS). The Cohen-
Hoberman Inventory of Physical Symptoms (Cohen & Hoberman, 1983)
was used to assess the respondents physical well-being over the past 2 weeks.The CHIPS is a list of 33 physical symptoms, which had been carefully
selected so as to exclude symptoms of an obviously psychological nature
(e.g., feeling nervous or depressed). Respondents are asked to indicate the
extent to which they are bothered by these physical symptoms on a 5-point
scale ranging from 0 (I have not been bothered by the problem) to 4 (I have
been extremely bothered by the problem), with lower scores indicating bet-
ter physical well-being (i.e., lower symptom intensity). This scale has
adequate reliability and validity estimates.
Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS).The Satisfaction With Life Scale
(Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) is a concise five-item measure
of global life satisfaction and is suitable for all ages, from adolescents to
adults. Respondents indicated their extent of agreement with each of the
item (e.g., In most ways my life is close to my ideal) on a 7-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The reliabil-
ity and validity of the SWLS has been considered adequate (Diener et al.,
1985; Neto, 1993; Pavot, Diener, Colvin, & Sandvik, 1991).
Brief COPE. The Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) is a multidimensional cop-
ing inventory that is used to assess the different ways in which people
respond to stress. It was developed from the 53-item Coping Operations
Preference Enquiry (COPE) questionnaire (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub,
1989) that has demonstrated good psychometric properties as an assess-
ment of dispositional and situational coping efforts. The Brief COPE was
derived specifically to reduce total participant response burden withoutcompromising the integrity of the instrument. It consists of 14 scales (i.e.,
Active Coping, Planning, Positive Reframing, Acceptance, Humor, Religion,
Emotional Support, Instrumental Support, Self-Distraction, Denial, Venting,
Substance Use, Behavioral Disengagement, and Self-Blame). Each scale
consists of two items that reflect the type of coping (e.g., for the scale of
Venting, the items consist of I have been saying things to let my unpleas-
ant feelings escape and I have been expressing my negative feelings).
Participants are asked to respond to each item on a Likert-type scale of 1(I usually dont do this at all) to 4 (I usually do this a lot). Despite the fact
that the scale had two items each, their reliabilities ranged from .50 to .90
(Carver, 1997).
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260 Cross-Cultural Research
Results
Descriptive Statistics
The means, standard deviations, and standardized coefficient alphas of
the measures used in this study are shown in Table 1. The measures used in
this study were also found to have internal consistency reliability estimates
mostly of acceptable values, with standardized coefficient alphas ranging
from .40 to .94 for the Australian sample and .50 to .91 for the Singaporean
sample. The lowest standardized coefficient alphas of .40 and .91 were
calculated from Brief COPES subscales consisting of two items each.
Cross-Cultural Group Differences
To test for Hypothesis 1, which posited cross-national difference in the
dimensionality of LOT-R in the two samples, LOT-Rs six items were sub-
mitted to principal-axis factor analysis. In the Australian sample, one factor
with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and accounting for 45.37% of the vari-
ance was found. In the Singaporean sample, two factors with eigenvalues
greater than 1.0 accounted for 42.47% of the variance after an oblimin rota-
tion, of which the first factor accounted for 32.59% while the second factor
accounted for 9.87%. For both samples, scree plots of factor roots were
consistent with the extraction of the factors. Factor loadings for the factor
solutions are shown in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, the items had no double
loading and no loading less than .3.
To test for Hypothesis 2, which posited some cross-cultural differences
in the mean scores of the variables under study, independent sample ttest
analyses were conducted for the various measures used in the study (seeTable 1). Independent sample t-test results showed that the Australian par-
ticipants tended to be more agreeable, more conscientious, more optimistic
(for bipolar scale only), and more satisfied with their lives than the
Singaporean participants. In contrast, Singaporean participants tended to be
more neurotic and more pessimistic. Cross-cultural differences were also
found in the mean scores of coping strategies used by participants in the
two samples. Australian participants were found to use more distraction,
active coping, denial, substance use, emotional support, instrumental sup-port, behavioral disengage, venting, positive reframing, planning, humor,
acceptance, and self-blame when compared to Singaporean participants.
Using religion was the only strategy that was not significantly different for
the two samples of participants.
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Cross-Cultural Relational DifferencesTable 3 showed the zero-order correlations for personality, bipolar opti-
mism, unipolar optimism, unipolar pessimism, state-trait anxiety, stress,
physical symptoms, and life satisfaction. For both samples, both bipolar
Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Standardized Coefficient
Alphas for Variables in Australian and Singaporean Samples
Australia Singapore
Standard Standard
Variable M SD Alpha M SD Alpha
Extraversion 26.58 6.53 .84 27.96 6.15 .81
Agreeableness 33.16a 4.41 .78 31.39a 4.32 .72
Conscientiousness 28.34a 6.15 .84 25.93a 5.96 .83
Neuroticism 19.95
a
5.54 .77 21.82
a
5.99 .79Openness to experience 29.54 5.11 .75 29.40 4.59 .70
Bipolar optimism 20.96a 4.13 .81 19.60a 4.00 .71
Unipolar optimism 10.47 2.05 .60 10.38 2.40 .65
Unipolar pessimism 7.51a 2.54 .82 8.79a 2.43 .65
State anxiety 37.60 11.79 .94 39.09 10.43 .90
Trait anxiety 41.92 9.64 .90 44.80 9.85 .89
Stress 8.27 5.21 .89 8.41 4.87 .86
Physical symptoms 27.78 19.44 .92 29.50 19.51 .91
Life satisfaction 24.38a 7.35 .92 19.88a 7.32 .85
Distraction 3.50a
1.61 .40 2.97a
0.87 .50Active 3.76a 1.86 .68 2.87a 0.88 .66
Denial 1.92a 0.96 .62 1.56a 0.71 .62
Substance 2.12a 1.26 .93 1.39a 0.77 .93
Emotional support 3.45a 1.88 .89 2.90a 1.05 .85
Instrumental support 3.72a 1.86 .86 2.86a 1.01 .91
Behavioral disengagement 2.01a 1.05 .72 1.69a 0.74 .67
Venting 3.01a 1.51 .60 2.58a 0.81 .53
Positive reframing 3.36a 1.70 .78 2.73a 1.02 .72
Planning 3.74a 1.93 .79 2.75a 0.89 .70
Humor 2.93a
1.74 .83 2.15a
0.93 .78Acceptance 3.80a 1.87 .60 3.00a 0.90 .63
Religion 2.46 1.76 .91 2.36 1.14 .85
Self-blame 3.10a 1.52 .77 2.28a 0.99 .72
Note: For Australian sampleN=189. For Singaporean sampleN=243.
a. A cross-national difference in the observed relationship based on independent sample ttest
(p
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262 Cross-Cultural Research
optimism and unipolar optimism are significantly correlated with agree-
ableness and life satisfaction in the positive direction. However, both bipolar
optimism and unipolar optimism are significantly correlated with conscien-
tiousness and openness to experience in the positive direction for the
Singaporean sample only. For both samples, both bipolar optimism and
unipolar optimism are significantly correlated with unipolar pessimism,
state anxiety, trait anxiety, stress, and physical symptoms in the negative
direction. In contrast, for both samples, unipolar pessimism is significantly
correlated with state anxiety, trait anxiety, stress, and physical symptoms in
the positive direction and is significantly correlated with life satisfaction in
the negative direction.
To test for cross-cultural differences in the significant predictors account-
ing for variances in the two samples after controlling for age and gender
(Hypothesis 3), two sets of five hierarchical regression analyses for each
national sample were conducted using state anxiety, trait anxiety, stress,
physical symptoms, and life satisfaction as outcome variables. To reduce
the risk of Type I error based on the number of tests, we set alpha to .001
for all hierarchical regression analyses (see Table 4).
Hierarchical regression analyses using bipolar optimism. For the first
set of hierarchical regression analysis, each hierarchical regression analysis
was conducted by entering age and gender as covariates in the first step,
Table 2
Life Orientation TestRevised Factor Loading
for Australian and Singaporean Samples
Australia Singapore
Item Content Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 1 Factor 2
Pessimism
I rarely count on good things happening to me. .79 .65
If something can go wrong for me, it will. .67 .62
I hardly ever expect things to go my way. .82 .54
OptimismIn uncertain times, I usually expect the best. .32 .62
Overall, I expect more good things .72 .60
to happen to me than bad.
Im always optimistic about my future. .59 .56
Note: Extraction method: Principal axis factoring for both samples. Rotation method: Oblimin
with Kaiser normalization for Singaporean sample.
at Univ of Newcastle upon Tyne on August 10, 2009http://ccr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
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263
Table3
CorrelationAmongPersonality,
Optimism,Pessimism,
State-TraitAnxiety,Stress,PhysicalSymptom
s,
andL
ifeSatisfactioninAust
ralian(UpperTriangle)andSingaporean(Low
erTriangle)Samples
Variable
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1.Extraversion
.08
.12
-.24**
.14
.31*
*
.26**
-.29**
-.26**
-.32**
-.05
-.02
.32**
2.Agreeableness
.15**
.32**
-.26**
.10
.34*
*
.26**
-.35**
-.36**
-.26**
-.09
-.32**
.23**
3.Conscientiousness
.06
.24**
-.11
.19*
.09
.07
-.09
-.16*
-.21**
.01
-.23**
.05
4.Neuroticism
-.24**
-.29**
-.32**
.07
-.46*
*
-.40**
.43**
.58**
.64**
.51**
.41**
-.38**
5.Opennessto
.17**
.05
.03
.01
-.09
-.08
.08
.06
.13
.15*
.17*
-.03
experience
6.Bipolaroptim
ism
.36**
.16*
.29**
-.36**
.22**
.87**
-.92**
-.48**
-.62**
-.33**
-.34**
.59**
7.Unipolaroptimism
.33**
.24**
.27**
-.28**
.23**
.83*
*
-.61**
-.44**
-.53**
-.29**
-.27**
.53**
8.Unipolarpess
imism
-.27**
-.03
-.21**
.32**
-.14*
-.83*
*
-.38**
.43**
.58**
.23**
.34**
-.53**
9.Stateanxiety
-.32**
-.29**
-.28**
.54**
-.10
-.48*
*
-.40**
.40**
.73**
.57**
.49**
-.54**
10.Traitanxiety
-.38**
-.29**
-.34**
.67**
-.12
-.57*
*
-.44**
.52**
.75**
.59**
.55**
-.68**
11.Stress
-.21**
-.18**
-.13**
.56**
-.08
-.29*
*
-.20**
.28**
.54**
.61**
.55**
-.37**
12.Physicalsymptoms
-.20**
-.14*
-.28**
.31**
.00
-.33*
*
-.21**
.33**
.40**
.42**
.34**
-.29**
13.Lifesatisfacti
on
.14*
.25**
.20**
-.34**
.02
.38*
*
.36**
-.28**
-.44**
-.47**
-.25**
-.10
*p