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Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale

The Life Attitudes Scale (LAS) was designed to measure tragic optimism (TO)—a distinct type of optimism that could generate hopeless hope even in dire situations according to existential positive psychology (PP 2.0). This study explains why only a faith-based TO could serve as a buffer against suffe...

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Autores principales: Leung, Mega M., Arslan, Gökmen, Wong, Paul T. P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8450366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34552523
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646843
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author Leung, Mega M.
Arslan, Gökmen
Wong, Paul T. P.
author_facet Leung, Mega M.
Arslan, Gökmen
Wong, Paul T. P.
author_sort Leung, Mega M.
collection PubMed
description The Life Attitudes Scale (LAS) was designed to measure tragic optimism (TO)—a distinct type of optimism that could generate hopeless hope even in dire situations according to existential positive psychology (PP 2.0). This study explains why only a faith-based TO could serve as a buffer against suffering at the Nazi death camps as well as the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In study 1, the results showed that the factorial structure of a 15-item LAS-Brief (LAS-B), which is a short measure of TO, replicated the original structure of the 32-item long version. The five factors (i.e., affirmation, acceptance, courage, faith, and self-transcendence) provided a good data model fit statistics for LAS-B; the measure had adequate-to-strong internal and latent construct reliability estimates. In study 2, the buffering effect of TO on the association between suffering experiences during COVID-19 and life satisfaction in adults was examined. The results of the studies were consistent with our hypothesis that TO as measured by LAS-B serves as a buffer against the impact of COVID-19 suffering on life satisfaction.
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spelling pubmed-84503662021-09-21 Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale Leung, Mega M. Arslan, Gökmen Wong, Paul T. P. Front Psychol Psychology The Life Attitudes Scale (LAS) was designed to measure tragic optimism (TO)—a distinct type of optimism that could generate hopeless hope even in dire situations according to existential positive psychology (PP 2.0). This study explains why only a faith-based TO could serve as a buffer against suffering at the Nazi death camps as well as the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In study 1, the results showed that the factorial structure of a 15-item LAS-Brief (LAS-B), which is a short measure of TO, replicated the original structure of the 32-item long version. The five factors (i.e., affirmation, acceptance, courage, faith, and self-transcendence) provided a good data model fit statistics for LAS-B; the measure had adequate-to-strong internal and latent construct reliability estimates. In study 2, the buffering effect of TO on the association between suffering experiences during COVID-19 and life satisfaction in adults was examined. The results of the studies were consistent with our hypothesis that TO as measured by LAS-B serves as a buffer against the impact of COVID-19 suffering on life satisfaction. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8450366/ /pubmed/34552523 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646843 Text en Copyright © 2021 Leung, Arslan and Wong. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Leung, Mega M.
Arslan, Gökmen
Wong, Paul T. P.
Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale
title Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale
title_full Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale
title_fullStr Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale
title_full_unstemmed Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale
title_short Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale
title_sort tragic optimism as a buffer against covid-19 suffering and the psychometric properties of a brief version of the life attitudes scale
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8450366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34552523
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646843
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