Optimism and Its Association with Psychological Stress Among a Sample of Graduate Students at King Abdulaziz University

This study aimed to examine the level of optimism and psychological stress among graduate students at King Abdulaziz University (N = 152), and to measure the relationship between these two variables. It also seeks to investigate differences in the mean scores of optimism and psychological stress based on demographic variables (gender, specialization, and academic level). The researchers employed the descriptive correlational approach, utilizing the short version of the Personal and Self-Efficiency Optimism (Gavrilov-Jerković et al., 2014), and the Perceived Psychological Stress Scale (Cohen et al.,1983) translated by Al-Rubkhi (2016). The results showed that participants reported a high level of optimism and a low level of psychological stress. A weak negative correlation was found between both dimensions of optimism (personal and self-efficiency) and psychological stress. Further, the findings showed no statistically significant differences in optimism and psychological stress based on gender, specialization, or academic level, except for the self-efficiency optimism dimension, where statistically significant differences were found in favor of male students.