Temporal aspects of unrealistic optimism and robustness of this bias: A longitudinal study in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (original) (raw)
Related papers
Research conducted at the outset of the pandemic shows that people are vulnerable to unrealistic optimism (UO). However, the Weinstein model suggests that this tendency may not persist as the pandemic progresses. Our research aimed at verifying whether UO persists during the second (Study 1) and the third wave (Study 2) of the pandemic in Poland, whether it concerns the assessment of the chances of COVID-19 infection (Study 1 and Study 2), the chances of severe course of the disease and adverse vaccine reactions (Study 2). We show that UO towards contracting COVID-19 persists throughout the pandemic. However, in situations where we have little influence on the occurrence of the event, the participants do not show UO. The exceptions are those who have known personally someone who has died from a coronavirus infection. These results are discussed in terms of self-esteem protection and the psychological threat reduction mechanism.
Unrealistic Optimism and Risk for COVID-19 Disease
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
Risk perception and consequently engagement in behaviors to avoid illness often do not match actual risk of infection, morbidity, and mortality. Unrealistic optimism occurs when individuals falsely believe that their personal outcomes will be more favorable than others' in the same risk category. Natural selection could favor overconfidence if its benefits, such as psychological resilience, outweigh its costs. However, just because optimism biases may have offered fitness advantages in our evolutionary past does not mean that they are always optimal. The current project examined relationships among personal risk for severe COVID-19, risk perceptions, and preventative behaviors. We predicted that those with higher risk of severe COVID-19 would exhibit unrealistic optimism and behave in ways inconsistent with their elevated risk of morbidity and mortality. Clinical risk scores for severe COVID-19 were calculated and compared with COVID-19 threat appraisal, compliance with shelter-...
Optimism Bias during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Empirical Evidence from Romania and Italy
Games
Given the importance of perceived susceptibility to a disease in adopting preventive behaviors, and the negative impact of optimism bias on prevention, this paper aimed to explore to what extent comparative optimism bias (understood as the tendency to assess a lower probability for oneself to experience negative health events compared to others) is present in the specific context of the Covid-19 pandemic, in two countries with different profiles in terms of the spread of the disease: Italy and Romania. After identifying optimism bias in both countries, we tested whether it depends on respondents’ characteristics like gender, age, education, health status and whether or not they have the opportunity to work from home. We surveyed 1126 Romanians and 742 Italians, and found that optimism bias depends on self-reported health status, and that optimism bias increases with age. Inconclusive evidences were found regarding gender and education level, as well as the option to work from home.
Can Self-Protective Behaviors Increase Unrealistic Optimism? Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2021
People tend to believe they are more (less) likely to experience positive (negative) outcomes than similar others. While research has consistently shown that feeling unrealistically optimistic about future events influences the adoption of self-protective behaviors, much less is known about the opposite relationship. We address this gap by examining whether and how self-protective behaviors influence unrealistic optimism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across two preregistered, high-powered experiments (N = 4,707), we document a generalized unrealistic optimism about the health risks associated with COVID-19. Critically, we show that prompting people to think about a precautionary behavior they often perform (i.e., mask wearing) magnifies this preexisting tendency. Egocentrism, but not self-enhancement and/or better-than-average effects, helps to explain the phenomenon. Theoretical contributions and substantive implications to health risk research and policy are discussed. Public Significance Statement This research shows that past self-protective behaviors (e.g., mask wearing) enhance people's propensity to feel unrealistically safer than similar others. This finding suggests that although encouraging precautionary measures is fundamental to boost self-protection, communication strategies should not just focus on the safety benefits of such measures, but also ask individuals to be wary of this potential unintended psychological consequence.
Time to Worry? Comparative Biases and Health-Related Behaviors in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic
SpringerBriefs in psychology, 2023
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.
Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2020
Objective: The results of numerous empirical studies have showed the occurrence of so-called unrealistic optimism. Thus, we aimed to investigate whether in the situation of an imminent coronavirus pandemic, people would still perceive themselves as being less exposed to the disease than others. Methods: Survey studies were conducted to examine the level of unrealistic optimism. Participants (n = 171, 67.3% of women) in a subjective way judged the risk of their coronavirus infection and the likelihood that this would happen to an average student of the same sex from their class. The survey was conducted in three waves: prior to the announcement of the first case of coronavirus (2–3 March), immediately after that announcement (5–6 March), and a few days later (9–10 March). Results: We showed that women estimated the chances of being infected as significantly higher (M = 4.52, SD = 2.079; t = 2.387; p = 0.018; Cohen’s d = 0.393) than men (M = 3.71, SD = 2.042). The phenomenon of unreal...
SpringerBriefs in Psychology
In this chapter we present a very special form of social illusions: unrealistic pessimism (the expectation that negative events will happen to us in comparison to others who will be less affected by negative events like earthquakes or radioactive pollution). On that basis, we were interested in which illusions, which are associated with appearing in the moment of crisis, will appear during the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic: that is, unrealistic optimism or pessimism (I perceive myself as less or more threatened than others) and the better-than-average effect.It turned out that unrealistic optimism was present from the very beginning and did not disappear even when our respondents were delivered clear data (e.g., number of casualties, the rapid growth of cases) showing that all societies around the world were in great danger.In this chapter we also present global studies showing how widespread this phenomenon is.Interestingly, in our studies the better-than-average effect was als...
Psychological Reports
In this study, we examined the relationship between optimism and pessimism associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, mental health, and perceived risk of infection. In particular, we tested the hypothesis that, when optimism and pessimism were high during the pandemic period, a worse mental health and a higher perception of risk would be reported. To this end, a convenience sample of 374 Italian adults was enrolled. Measures included perceived stress, optimism, and pessimism associated with the development of the pandemic situation, as well as the perceived risk of Covid-19 infection. The results showed that optimism and pessimism were associated with perceived stress and Covid-19 risk perception while controlling for demographic variables. Optimism and stress were negatively related, while pessimism was positively related to both stress and risk perception. Furthermore, the interaction between optimism and optimism was significant, with a higher perception of risk in the presence of b...