Abstract:

Abstract The aim of this research is to specify the perceptions of girls and boys on which gender is more optimistic and to investigate differentiation of the level of optimism according to gender. 18-26 year old 266 university students (145girls, 121 boys) have participated in this descriptive research. Personal Information Form is used to specify demographic features of students and Life Orientation test, which is developed by Scheier and Carver ( 1985) and is translated to Turkish by Aydın and Tezer ( 1991), is used to investigate the level of optimism. Students are asked to select one out of three statements (Girls are more optimistic, Boys are more optimistic, There is no difference between girls and boys in terms of optimism) to investigate their perception of optimism according to gender. Chi-squared test and T-Test are used to analyze the data. The results of this research show that both genders mostly have the perception on those boys are more optimistic however this result is not statistically significant, and there is also not statistically significant difference among girls and boys regarding their level of optimism. The findings were discussed in light of the related literature. Key Words: Optimism, Sexual Diversity, Optimism perception

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