The main purpose of the present study was to assess the test-retest reliability of a newly devised instrument for measuring optimism and pessimism. In addition, correlations were obtained between the optimism and pessimism scores and two measures of happiness as well as with subjects' responses to single-item questions about the likelihood of a nuclear encounter and about their religious and political commitment and philosophy oflife. The instruments were administered to 106 introductory psychology students on two occasions separated by a 2-week interval. The test-retest reliability for the optimism scale was .75; for pessimism, .84. Both optimism and pessimism were correlated, on both administrations, with both happiness measures in the high .50s to low .60s. Of the remaining items, the strongest relation was between optimism and religious commitment (r = .27), conflrming prior results.A newly devised instrument for measuring optimism and pessimism has been described by Dember, Martin, Hummer, Howe, and Melton (in press). The original impetus for that work stemmed from an interest in investigating the correlates of individual differences in susceptibility to the Pollyanna principle-a common tendency to "accentuate the positive" that is manifested in a wide variety of circumstances (see Matlin & Stang, 1978). Dember and Penwell (1980) reported modest correlations between one measure of the Pollyanna tendency and two indices of subjective well-being, or happiness. The measure of happiness used was chosen by virtue of its ease of administration and its good psychometric properties (Kammann, Christie, Irwin, & Dixon, 1979); a direct measure of optimism would have been preferable, but an acceptable one was not available at the time.The Dember et al. instrument was devised speciflcally to flll that gap. In the meantime, interest in optimism and pessimism burgeoned, stimulated in large part by the revised learned helplessness model of Seligman and his collaborators (e.g., Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978).Research performed within that framework has identified what have been called optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles as implicated in physical health (Kamen, Rodin, & Seligman, 1987; Peterson, Seligman, & Vaillant, 1988) and even in the attractiveness of political candidates (Zullow, Oettingen, Peterson, & Seligman, 1988). That work was carried out with the aid of an instrument for measuring explanatory style, the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; see Peterson et al., 1982), or with a content analysis system (Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations, or CAVE; see Peterson, Luborsky, & Seligman, 1983) based on the ASQ for use with existing documents.Correspondence may be addressed to William N. Dember, Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0376. 365At present, then, there are competing instruments for measuring optimism and pessimism, including a brief scale developed by Cloninger (1987) and one, very similar to ours, by Scheier and Carver (1985). It would be ...

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IntroductionThe need for an efficient, low-cost, comprehensive measure to track infant/toddler development and treatment outcomes is critical, given the importance of early detection and monitoring. This manuscript describes the protocol for the development and testing of a novel measure, PediaTrac, that collects longitudinal, prospective, multidomain data from parents/caregivers to characterise infant/toddler developmental trajectories in term and preterm infants. PediaTrac, a web-based measure, has the potential to become the standard method for monitoring development and detecting risk in infancy and toddlerhood.Methods and analysesUsing a multisite, prospective design, primarcaregivers will complete PediaTrac V.3.0, a survey tool that queries core domains of early development, including feeding/eating/elimination, sleep, sensorimotor, social/sensory information processing, social/communication/cognition and early relational health. Information also will be obtained about demographic, medical and environmental factors and embedded response bias indices are being developed as part of the measure. Using an approach that systematically measures infant/toddler developmental domains during a schedule that corresponds to well-child visits (newborn, 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 months), we will assess 360 caregiver/term infant dyads and 240 caregiver/preterm infant dyads (gestational age <37 weeks). Parameter estimates of our items and latent traits (eg, sensorimotor) will be estimated by theta using item response theory-graded response modelling. Participants also will complete legacy (ie, established) measures of development and caregiver health and functioning, used to provide evidence for construct (discriminant) validity. Predictive validity will be evaluated by examining relationships between the PediaTrac domains and the legacy measures in the total sample and in a subsample of 100 participants who will undergo a neurodevelopmental assessment at 24 months of age.Ethics and disseminationThis investigation has single Institutional Review Board (IRB) multisite approval from the University of Michigan (IRB HUM00151584). The results will be presented at prominent conferences and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.