Abstract

The dispositional optimism has been researched widely in different cultures, proving its utility as a related variable and as a predictor of important psychological variables and states of health. The following study reports the preliminary psychometric properties of the Life Orientation Test (LOT-R), in a sample of 309 young university students with ages between 18 and 25 years, from Santiago of Chile. The estimation of the internal consistency was of 0,65. From the exploratory factorial analysis a two factors structure emerges, of optimism and pessimism, which explain a 55.55% of the variance. There are not significant sex differences between men and women. In general terms, evidence support the adequacy of the test for its use in Chile.