Relationship of Optimism and Procrastination with Physical and Mental Health

Description

Page: 315-318

Sanya Soofi, Rachna Dave, and Bhupinder Singh (Department of Psychology, Barkatullah University, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh)

Optimism refers to an individual’s tendency to expect only good things from future and the ability to view circumstances or situations positively. Procrastination is the action of voluntarily and unnecessarily postponing tasks, knowing there will be negative consequences for doing so. These two factors are observed to influence one’s overall health condition, both physical as well as mental. The objective of the study is to find the relationship of optimism and procrastination with physical and mental health of the participants. This research was conducted on a sample of 63 university students (48 females & 15 males). The ages ranged from 20 – 25 years of age. The tools used were ‘Revised Life-Orientation Test’ (Scheier & Carver, 1992); ‘General Procrastination Scale’ (Lodha et al., 2016); and ‘Short- Form Health Questionnaire’ (Sherbourne et al., 1992) for assessing optimism, procrastination and mental and physical health. The results were analysed using SPSS V.19 Program to ascertain the relationship of optimism and procrastination with physical and mental health respectively. The results reveal that, physical and mental health is positively correlated with optimism and, negativity correlated with procrastination. Thus, the findings suggest that by bringing desirable directional changes in the level of optimism and procrastination health status can be improved, and can be helpful for health professionals.