Interdisciplinary View into Optimism and Pessimism in Emic Perspective

Abstract

The tradition of research of optimism and pessimism is very popular nowadays, but the past decades had offered a string of very interesting access into this phenomenon as within separate cultures so on the plan of cross-cultural comparisons. The aim of this research was to establish to which extent the different variables describing the style and lifestyle of students in Bosnia and Herzegovina are connected with the level of optimism / pessimism. In that regard, beside the general information on examinees, the differences regarding sex, evaluation of parental control dimensions and emotionality (family status), the level of empathy, intercultural sensibility, and the resistance and or the inclination to depressive, anxious conditions and stress, had been affirmed. An interdisciplinary approach dominated in this research (connecting the knowledge from pedagogy, psychology, sociology) relevant for the question of optimism/pessimism, as well as emic perspective, a perspective of view from within in research of one culture a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The empiric part of research has covered the sample comprising of 457 examinees, students of the Universities of Zenica and University of Sarajevo with total of 9 faculties covering technical, scientific, social and humanistic sciences. The results had confirmed some of previously obtained both theoretical and empiric thesis on connection of optimism / pessimism with family background, level of empathy, intercultural sensitivity and preference of examinees' lifestyles.