The relative importance of dispositional optimism and resilience in predicting stress

Optimism and resilience may differ in their ability to predict various types of student stress, but they have yet to be directly compared within the U.S. higher education landscape. In this study, we directly compared the two traits to see which one would be a stronger predictor of academic stress. First-year college students (N = 355) completed an online study that measured their perceived academic stress, dispositional optimism, and dispositional resilience. Bivariate correlations showed that resilience and optimism were both negatively correlated with all four types of academic stress. Multiple regression showed that resilience was a stronger predictor than optimism for stress related to academic self-perceptions, whereas optimism was a better predictor than resilience for stress related to pressure to perform and time restraints, even when controlling for demographic and personality factors. These findings increase knowledge about the relationships between academic stress, resilience, and optimism and may be informative for future intervention research.