Department of Counseling and Human Development, The Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel.
Department of Gerontology, University of Haifa, Israel.
Br J Health Psychol. 2020 Nov;25(4):1055-1073. doi: 10.1111/bjhp.12466. Epub 2020 Sep 10.
Studies have demonstrated the importance of optimism in predicting perceived general health. However, the handful of studies focusing on cardiovascular biomarkers show inconsistent effects. Additionally, no study examined whether spousal levels of optimism and pessimism affect an individual's biological markers of cardiovascular health. Thus, our objectives were to examine whether partners' optimism and pessimism affect individual biological markers, differentiating between between-dyad associations and within-dyad predictive processes.
Three waves of the Health and Retirement Study collected in 2006, 2010, and 2014 were used to test actor and partner effects of optimism and pessimism on C-reactive protein (CRP) and high-density lipoprotein. Multilevel longitudinal actor-partner models were used to examine the contribution of a partner's optimism and pessimism to each biomarker, adjusting for respondent's age, sex, depression, body mass index, daily activity levels, and a summary score of respondent's doctor-diagnosed chronic conditions.
Partners' pessimism and optimism levels were moderately associated. Results for within-person effects were all non-significant, both within and across waves. Associations at the between-person level were also non-significant, with the exception of a positive association between husbands' pessimism and their own CRP, and husbands' optimism and their wives' CRP.
Results suggest that optimism and pessimism may not play a pertinent role in within variability of biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases and have a minor role in predicting to between-person variability of biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases.
研究表明乐观在预测整体健康感知方面的重要性。然而，少数关注心血管生物标志物的研究显示出不一致的效果。此外，没有研究检验配偶的乐观和悲观程度是否会影响个体心血管健康的生物标志物。因此，我们的目标是检验配偶的乐观和悲观是否会影响个体的生物标志物，区分对生物标志物的个体间影响和个体内预测过程。
使用 2006 年、2010 年和 2014 年的健康与退休研究的三个波次来检验乐观和悲观对 C 反应蛋白（CRP）和高密度脂蛋白的个体和伴侣效应。多层次纵向演员-伴侣模型用于检验伴侣的乐观和悲观对每个生物标志物的贡献，同时调整了受访者的年龄、性别、抑郁、体重指数、日常活动水平和医生诊断的慢性疾病综合评分。
伴侣的悲观和乐观水平中度相关。个体内效应的结果均不显著，无论是在个体内还是跨波次。个体间的关联也不显著，除了丈夫的悲观与自己的 CRP 之间以及丈夫的乐观与妻子的 CRP 之间呈正相关。
结果表明，乐观和悲观在心血管疾病生物标志物的个体内变异性中可能没有起到重要作用，而在预测心血管疾病生物标志物的个体间变异性方面的作用较小。
