Time to Worry? Comparative Biases and Health-Related Behaviors in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic (original) (raw)

Abstract

The manifestation of unrealistic optimism during the particular period of a pandemic is unquestionably a cognitively interesting phenomenon in its own right. Equally (or perhaps even more) interesting is how cognitive biases are related to the manifestation of specific, e.g., health-promoting, behaviors. After all, you have likely been thinking to yourself for some time: "well, I know what cognitive biases are; I can see that they occur during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. I also remember that they are functional: they enable us to reduce stress, fear, and anxiety. Perhaps, then, this falsehood should not be taken away from us? After all, what's wrong with deluding ourselves about the present and the future?" These questions are absolutely crucial because the reduction of prolonged stress should have a positive effect on long-term health. Egotistical illusions can therefore be treated as a health-promoting factor. 3.1 Unrealistic Pessimism Recall at this point that the very idea of our carrying out an extensive program of research on comparative illusions during a pandemic originated in our observation that this distinctive state of vagueness and a sense of widespread danger is very much like the situation in which a radioactive cloud loomed over people's heads in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. At that time, one of the authors of this book and his colleagues (Dolinski et al., 1987) observed the occurrence of unrealistic pessimism. Most of the people in their research felt more vulnerable to radiation exposure than the average person. Of course, in the rather large population studied by these psychologists at the time, there were also those who demonstrated unrealistic optimism. They believed that it would be others, rather than them, who would become ill in the future with diseases that were a consequence of significantly elevated radiation.

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