Dispositional optimism: development over 21 years from the perspectives of perceived temperament and mothering

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of childhood perceived temperament and mother’s child-rearing attitudes on dispositional optimism–pessimism in adulthood. Participants (N=509) were two age cohorts from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study, who were three and 6 years of age at the study entry. Maternal reports of the child’s difficult temperament (high activity, high negative emotionality, and low cooperativeness) and mother’s hostile child-rearing attitudes were obtained at study entry and three years later. Dispositional optimism–pessimism was measured by self-report at the 21-year follow-up. The results show that difficult temperament measured at the study entry predicted hostile child-rearing attitudes 3 years later, the hostile child-rearing attitudes, in turn, predicting scores indicative of greater pessimism 21 years later at ages 24 and 27. The results did not reveal cross-sectional interactions between childhood variables in predicting the disposition nor were any gender differences observed in the developmental paths.