Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R)

Factor: Power and Autonomy

Age: Adult

Duration: Less than 3 minutes

Reading Level: Less than 6th grade

What

Developed by psychologist Michael Scheier and colleagues (1994), the Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) is a 10-item scale that measures how optimistic or pessimistic people feel about the future.

Who

Researchers have used the LOT-R with many kinds of people, including adults in poverty (Lynch, Kaplan, & Shema, 1997; Heinonen et al., 2006).

How

INSTRUCTIONS

Respondents use a 5-point rating scale (0 = strongly disagree; 4 = strongly agree) to show how much they agree with 10 statements about positive and negative expectations. These statements include “In uncertain times, I usually expect the best” and “If something can go wrong for me, it will.” Four items are “filler” statements that are not scored. Researchers later reverse-code three negatively worded items so that high ratings mean more optimism, and then calculate a score by adding the ratings of all the items for a total score from 0 to 24.

RESPONSE FORMAT

0 = strongly disagree; 1 = disagree; 2 = neutral; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree.

Why It Matters

Being optimistic improves people’s health, work performance, educational attainment, and other factors relevant to social mobility (Scheier & Carver, 1993). Compared to pessimistic people, for instance, optimistic people have better physical health (Rasmussen, Scheier, & Greenhouse, 2009) and less depression (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994). Optimistic people are also more successful students (Solberg Nes, Evans, & Segerstrom, 2009) and entrepreneurs (Crane & Crane, 2007). Moreover, people can learn to think more positively (Peters, et al., 2010), making optimism a promising target for social mobility interventions.

In addition, people’s socioeconomic status shapes how optimistic they are. Wealthy, highly educated, and European-American people tend to be very optimistic (Boehm et al., 2015), while people with financial troubles tend to be less optimistic (Lynch, Kaplan, & Shema, 1997). Childhood poverty predicts pessimism later on in life, but people who move out of poverty become more optimistic (Heinonen et al., 2006).

HEADS UP

Too much optimism can be a bad thing, as people ignore warning signs and take unnecessary risks (Hmieleski, & Baron, 2009). And though research suggests that helping people think more positively should improve their socioeconomic standing, no studies have yet directly tested this idea.

References

Boehm, J. K., Chen, Y., Williams, D. R., Ryff, C., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2015). Unequally distributed psychological assets: Are there social disparities in optimism, life satisfaction, and positive affect?. PloS One, 10(2), e0118066.

Crane, F. G., & Crane, E. C. (2007). Dispositional optimism and entrepreneurial success. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 10(1), 13-25.

Heinonen, K., Räikkönen, K., Matthews, K. A., Scheier, M. F., Raitakari, O. T., Pulkki, L., & Keltikangas‐Järvinen, L. (2006). Socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood: Associations with dispositional optimism and pessimism over a 21‐year follow‐up. Journal of Personality, 74(4), 1111-1126.

Hmieleski, K. M., & Baron, R. A. (2009). Entrepreneurs’ optimism and new venture performance: A social cognitive perspective. Academy of management Journal, 52(3), 473-488.

Lynch, J. W., Kaplan, G. A., & Shema, S. J. (1997). Cumulative impact of sustained economic hardship on physical, cognitive, psychological, and social functioning. New England Journal of Medicine, 337(26), 1889-1895.

Peters, M. L., Flink, I. K., Boersma, K., & Linton, S. J. (2010). Manipulating optimism: Can imagining a best possible self be used to increase positive future expectancies?. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(3), 204-211.

Rasmussen, H. N., Scheier, M. F., & Greenhouse, J. B. (2009). Optimism and physical health: A meta-analytic review. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 37(3), 239-256.

Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (1993). On the power of positive thinking: The benefits of being optimistic. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2(1), 26-30.

Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., & Bridges, M. W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): A reevaluation of the Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1063-1078.

Solberg Nes, L., Evans, D. R., & Segerstrom, S. C. (2009). Optimism and college retention: Mediation by motivation, performance, and adjustment. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39(8), 1887-1912.