Who looks on the bright side? Optimistic and pessimistic perceptual-response reflexes over American adulthood

Research suggests that the way individuals are oriented towards the future is deeply embedded in their psychology, shaping how they perceive and react to opportunities and threats, even at unconscious levels. We argue that exposures to opportunities and threats over the life course can shape future orientation at a deep level, and that word-valence effects to survey questions indicate optimistic and pessimistic "perceptual-response reflexes" that are manifestations of unconscious dispositions. Using data collected over 25 years in the Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) study we analyze variation in word-valence effects by age, birth cohort, gender, and race. The broad adult age-range of the sample and the length of follow-up permits the examination of birth cohorts ranging from the "First Children of the 20th Century" (born before 1917) to "Baby Boomers" (born 1947-1962). We find notable differences in age-graded trends across two overarching birth cohort groups: those who reached high school age before the Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs Board of Education decision in 1954 (i.e., born before 1932) and after (i.e., born in 1932 and later). Age-related trends in optimistic perceptual response diverge notably for women versus men, and for Black versus White Americans. Trends in pessimistic perceptual response differ from trends in optimistic response. For example, in early adulthood Black Americans score higher on both optimistic and pessimistic response patterns than White Americans. Birth-cohort differences in both outcomes vary by gender and race. Those differences are interpreted in terms of changes in political, demographic, and sociocultural contexts.