TITLE:
The Relationship of Hope, Optimism, Self-Esteem, Subjective Well-Being, and Personality in Brazilians and Americans
AUTHORS:
Claudio S. Hutz, Aida Midgett, Juliana Cerentini Pacico, Micheline R. Bastianello, Cristian Zanon
KEYWORDS:
Positive Psychology, Personality, Cultural Differences
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.6,
April
24,
2014
ABSTRACT: The main
objective of this paper was to conduct a cross-cultural study comparing a pool
of positive variables in an American and Brazilian sample. The variables were
hope, optimism, life satisfaction, affects, self-esteem, and personality. The
participants were 179 Americans aged 18 to 61 years and 499 Brazilians aged 17
to 53 years. They answered the following instruments: Adult Dispositional Hope
Scale, Life Orientation Test Revised, The Life Satisfaction with Life Scale,
Positive and Negative Affect Scale, The Rosenberg’s Self-esteem Scale, NEO-PI-R
and Bateria Fatorial de Personalidade. The results showed differences between
the two samples regarding the correlations between personality and positive psychology
variables. Differences in correlations among the positive psychology variables were
also found between Brazilians and Americans. The results showed that Americans
had higher scores in hope, positive affect and life satisfaction. Brazilians
showed higher scores in optimism and negative affect. One possible explanations
for these results are cultural differences and social conditions.