Optimism seems to foster the ability to manage adverse situations better - a finding especially
relevant for disadvantaged populations. Employing a unique sample from a small
underprivileged village, we study the association between spiritual practices and dispositional
optimism. The village belongs to a developing country that is, by far, the most
secular country in Latin America: this makes particularly interesting exploring the role of
spiritual practices in this context. We find that spiritual practices are positively associated
with higher optimism, measured by the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R): those who
practice spirituality, score, on average, 14.4 percentage points higher on the LOT-R than
those who do not. And this association seems to be especially robust in the case of the
poor and less educated: those with spiritual practices score 20 percentage points higher on
the LOT-R. Thus, the role that spiritual practices may play in dispositional optimism in
disadvantaged populations deserves more attentio