AUTHOR=Leung Mega M. , Arslan Gökmen , Wong Paul T. P. 

TITLE=Tragic Optimism as a Buffer Against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646843

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646843

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=The Life Attitudes Scale (LAS) was designed to measure tragic optimism (TO) - a distinct type of optimism that could generate hopeless hope even in dire situations according to existential positive psychology (PP 2.0). This paper explains why only a faith-based TO as conceptualized by Frankl (1985) and expanded by Wong (2009) could serve as a buffer against suffering at the Nazi death camps as well as the global COVID-19 pandemic.  In study one, results showed that the factorial structure of a 15-item Life Attitudes Scale-Brief (LAS-B) which is a short measure of TO replicated the original structure of the 32-item long version (Leung et al., 2003) .The five factors (i.e., affirmation, acceptance, courage, faith, and self-transcendence) provided good data model fit statistics for LAS-B; the measure had adequate-to-strong internal and latent construct  reliability estimates.  In study two, the buffering effect of TO on the association between suffering experiences during COVID-19 and life satisfaction  in adults was examined.  The results of the studies were consistent with our hypothesis that TO as measured by LAS-B serves as a buffer against the impact of COVID-19 suffering on life satisfaction.