We investigated the extent to which social support and coping
account
for the association between greater optimism and better adjustment to
stressful
life events. College students of both genders completed measures
of perceived stress, depression, friendship network size, and perceived
social support at the beginning and end of their first semesters of
college.
Coping was assessed at the end of the first semester. Greater
optimism,
assessed at the beginning of the first semester of college, was
prospectively
associated with smaller increases in stress and depression and greater
increases in perceived social support (but not in friendship network
size)
over the course of the first semester of college. Mediational
analyses
were consistent with a model in which increases in social support and
greater
use of positive reinterpretation and growth contributed to the superior
adjustment that optimists experienced.
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