Social acceptance of comparative optimism and realism

Studies of optimism and realism (the accuracy of people's outlook on the future) seek to understand the respective effects of these elements on social approbation. Two experiments examined how comparative optimism (vs. pessimism) and realism (vs. unrealism) interacted to influence the targets' social acceptance based on their perceptions about the future. The results showed that realism, or accuracy of prediction, increased the positive social effects of a comparatively optimistic outlook on the future. In contrast, targets who exhibited comparative pessimism were more socially acceptable when their predictions were unrealistic rather than realistic. This phenomenon was examined by also considering the polarity of the events about which judgments were expressed. These results contribute to the body of research about the relationship between optimism and pessimism and the relationship between optimism and realism.     

Unrealistic optimism about future life events: a cautionary note

A robust finding in social psychology is that people judge negative events as less likely to happen to themselves than to the average person, a behavior interpreted as showing that people are "unrealistically optimistic" in their judgments of risk concerning future life events. However, we demonstrate how unbiased responses can result in data patterns commonly interpreted as indicative of optimism for purely statistical reasons. Specifically, we show how extant data from unrealistic optimism studies investigating people's comparative risk judgments are plagued by the statistical consequences of sampling constraints and the response scales used, in combination with the comparative rarity of truly negative events. We conclude that the presence of such statistical artifacts raises questions over the very existence of an optimistic bias about risk and implies that to the extent that such a bias exists, we know considerably less about its magnitude, mechanisms, and moderators than previously assumed.     

Perceived Event Frequency and the Optimistic Bias: Evidence for a Two-Process Model of Personal Risk Judgments

People often judge themselves to be at lower risk for various negative life events than are their peers. The two empirical studies presented here show that the magnitude of this optimistic bias can be either negatively or positively related to the perceived frequency of the event, depending on whether people judge their own risk relative to that of an average peer (make comparative risk judgments) or judge their own and an average peer's risk separately (make absolute risk judgments). A new two-process model is presented to account for these results. The model combines a better-than-average heuristic with elements of the singular target-focused and singular- distributional models of Klar and colleagues (Klar & Giladi, 1997, 1999; Klar, Medding, & Sarel, 1996). The empirical results and model have many implications for the study of personal risk judgments, the optimistic bias, and risk-taking behavior.     

Optimistic and pessimistic biases and comparative judgmental processes in Japan: Do people really compare themselves to their peers?

Studies on above-average and unrealistic-optimism effects have recently claimed that they are the consequence of an over-utilization of self-relevant and under-utilization of peer-relevant information, despite the assumption that people would refer to both themselves and their average peer to make a comparative judgment. However, there is a possibility that these tendencies are prevalent only in Western cultures. The present paper reports on three studies of comparative self-other judgments conducted with Japanese university students. The results consistently showed that participants tended to focus simply on their own abilities, traits, or the likelihood of experiencing future life events, without paying much attention to their peers. These findings suggest first that there is a consistent tendency for people to place a greater weight on the self than normative standards when considering their comparative position in a group, and that this tendency is independent of the size or direction of comparative biases.     

Premise Acceptability and Message Effectiveness

Previous research shows inconsistent evidence in regard to gender differences in optimism for experiencing a happy marriage or avoiding divorce depending on whether optimism is measured as comparative optimism (thinking you are better off than your peers) or as personal optimism (estimating your own chances). Results from four samples of unmarried college students (N = 814) indicated that men exhibited greater comparative optimism than women for having a happy marriage but not for getting divorced. For having a happy marriage and avoiding divorce, men exhibited greater personal optimism relative to women. Experience (with parental divorce) moderated the gender difference in personal optimism and perceived control partially mediated the gender difference in comparative optimism (but only for having a happy marriage) and in personal optimism (for both having a happy marriage and avoiding divorce). Results are discussed as they relate to the existing literatures on risk perception and gender differences in romantic relationships.     

Comparative Optimism and Event Skewness

Comparative judgment biases—wherein a majority of people report being above‐ or below‐average in their abilities, traits, or future events—are a robust phenomenon in psychology. A recent explanation for these biases has focused on people's awareness that many comparative judgment domains form skewed distributions, and, hence, a majority of people can feasibly be above or below average. Indeed, this prior research found that comparative biases for abilities emerged more for skewed (vs. normal) distributions. In the current research, we attempted to (i) conceptually replicate this finding in a comparative likelihood context and (ii) provide evidence of an alternative explanation for the prior results. Replicating prior research, three correlational studies and one experimental study found that event skewness was related to direct comparative likelihood judgments for health events, such that comparative optimism emerged more for events judged or manipulated to come from positively skewed distributions than from negatively skewed distributions. However, event skewness was unrelated to indirect comparisons (absolute self minus absolute other). Moreover, consistent with an egocentric‐processes account, absolute self‐judgments were more predictive of direct comparisons than were absolute other judgments and showed the same association with event skewness as direct comparisons. Implications for explaining and interpreting comparative judgment biases are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Egocentrism and focalism in unrealistic optimism (and pessimism)

People tend to overestimate their comparative likelihood of experiencing a rosy future. The present research suggests that one reason for this error is that when people compare their likelihood of experiencing an event with that of the average person, they focus on their own chances of experiencing the event and insufficiently consider the likelihood of the average person experiencing the event. As a consequence, people tend to think that they are more likely than the average person to experience common events and less likely than the average person to experience rare events. This causes unrealistic optimism in the case of common desirable events and rare undesirable events, but unrealistic pessimism in the case of rare desirable events and common undesirable events (Studies 1 and 2). Study 2 further suggests that both egocentrism and focalism underlie these biases. These results suggest that unrealistic optimism is not as ubiquitous as once thought.     

Reversed better-than-average effect in direct comparisons of nonsocial stimuli depends on the set size

Studies on direct comparative judgments typically show that, for items that are positively evaluated, a single item randomly drawn from a larger set of similar items tends to be judged as better than average (the BTA effect). However, Windschitl, Conybeare, and Krizan (2008) demonstrated that, under timing conditions that do not favor focusing attention on the single item, the reversal of the BTA effect occurs. We report two experiments showing that the magnitude of the reversed BTA effect increases as a function of the size of a multiitem referent with which a single item target is compared. Specifically, in direct comparative judgments of the attractiveness of positively evaluated objects (nice-looking cloth buttons, attractive buildings, or cupcakes), underestimation of the attractiveness of singletons, as compared with a multiitem set (reversed BTA effect), increased with the increased set size. Analysis of absolute judgments obtained for singletons and for small and large multiitem sets suggests that, for attractive stimuli, both the reversed BTA effect in comparative judgments and its sensitivity to set size occur as a result of a positive relationship between set size and perceived attractiveness in absolute judgments.     

Cultural differences in unrealistic optimism and pessimism: the role of egocentrism and direct versus indirect comparison measures

Recent research has raised questions regarding the consistency of unrealistic optimism and related self-enhancing tendencies, both within cultures and across cultures. The current study tested whether the method used to assess unrealistic optimism influenced cross-cultural patterns in the United States and Japan. The results showed that the direct method (a single comparison judgment between self and peers) produced similar patterns across cultures because of cognitive biases (e.g., egocentrism); specifically, participants were unrealistically optimistic about experiencing infrequent/negative events but pessimistic about experiencing frequent/ negative events. However, the indirect method (separate self- and peer judgments) produced different patterns across cultures because culturally specific motivational biases emerged using this method; specifically, the U.S. sample was more unrealistically optimistic than the Japanese sample. The authors discuss how these results might influence the interpretation of previous findings on culture and self-enhancement.     

Effect of anxiety on optimism

A quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the possibility that people's optimism is reduced if they experience a specific form of negative affect, namely, anxiety. The level of optimism held by two groups of English students toward a range of life events was examined. Students taking examinations, the experimental group, were in an anxious state. Students who had completed their examinations, the control group, were less anxious. Those in the anxious group were less optimistic about the likelihood of both negative and positive events happening to them than were those in the control group. They were also less optimistic about the likelihood of events happening to others and of events happening to them in comparison with others. It was concluded that negative affect in general, and anxiety in particular, may have a global effect upon optimism: It may reduce optimism toward a broad range of judgments.     

Comparative risk and perceived control: implications for psychological and physical well-being among older adults

As older adults become more susceptible to certain health crises, their preoccupation with their risk of suffering such events increases. Understanding the implications of risk perceptions is critical because they may have consequences for psychological and physical well-being in later life. In the present study of older adults living in the community, the authors examined participants' comparative risk estimates (CREs)--their perceptions of their own risk relative to a similar other's risk--of suffering a hip fracture. Using multiple regression analyses, the authors examined the role of CREs on psychological well-being (negative emotions, life satisfaction) and self-rated physical well-being (general physical health, recent physical health). The authors expected perceived control (PC) to moderate the relationship between CREs and well-being. The predicted interaction did occur: Among individuals with high PC, comparative optimism (perceiving a comparatively low risk) was associated with better psychological well-being (fewer negative emotions and greater life satisfaction) and better physical well-being (general and recent physical health) relative to comparative pessimism (perceiving a comparatively high risk). Among individuals with low PC, there were no differences in well-being between comparative optimists and comparative pessimists. These findings suggest that the protective effect of comparative optimism on well-being is limited to older adults who have a strong sense of control.     

Testing the limits of optimistic bias: event and person moderators in a multilevel framework

N. D. Weinstein (1980) established that optimistic bias, the tendency to see others as more vulnerable to risks than the self, varies across types of event. Subsequently, researchers have documented that this phenomenon, also known as comparative optimism, also varies across types of people. The authors integrate hypotheses originally advanced by Weinstein concerning event-characteristic moderators with later arguments that such optimism may be restricted to certain subgroups. Using multilevel modeling over 7 samples (N = 1,436), the authors found that some degree of comparative optimism was present for virtually all individuals and events. Holding other variables constant, higher perceived frequency and severity were associated with less comparative optimism, higher perceived controllability and stereotype salience with more comparative optimism. Frequency, controllability, and severity were associated more with self-risk than with average-other risk, whereas stereotype salience was associated more with average-other risk than with self-risk. Individual differences also mattered: comparative optimism was related negatively to anxiety and positively to defensiveness and self-esteem. Interaction results imply that both individual differences and event characteristics should jointly be considered in understanding optimistic bias (or comparative optimism) and its application to risk communication.     

Dispositional Optimism and Judgments of Future Life Events: Affective States as Moderators

This research examined the relation between dispositional optimism and judgments of future life events and whether this relation is moderated by affective states. In this study the moderating role of experimentally induced affective states, using film clips (N = 259), was investigated. After filling in the questionnaire for dispositional optimism, the participants were randomly assigned in the experimental conditions in order to induce positive versus negative affective states. Finally, the participants filled in the affective states and judgments of future life events scales. The results indicated that the participants with a higher level of optimism had the tendency to judge positive events as more likely and negative events as less likely to happen in the future. We found evidence for affective states as moderators; the association between dispositional optimism and judgments of future positive events depended on experimentally induced affective states. Specifically, in positive affective state condition, the association between dispositional optimism and judgments of future positive events was weaker than in both negative affective state and control conditions. The implications of these findings for understanding the role of optimism and affective states, in determining the judgments about the likelihood of future events are discussed.     

Event frequency and comparative optimism: Another look at the indirect elicitation method of self-others risks

Price, Pentecost, and Voth (2002) argue that common rather than rare negative future life events elicit greater indirect self-others comparative optimism. We argue that this finding may reflect a measurement effect: Rare events generate small differences (but large ratios), whereas common events produce larger differences (but smaller ratios). In Study 1, we show that the greater is event's perceived frequency, the greater is the numerical value assigned to express a given degree of risk discrepancy. In Study 2, we found weak negative rather than positive relations between perceived event frequency and the sense of risk discrepancy. Thus, it is crucial to understand how participants relate the two risk probabilities to each other to estimate their indirect comparative optimism.     

Self‐enhancement,crash‐risk optimism and the impact of safety advertisements on young drivers

In Study 1, young drivers (aged between 16 and 29 years, N=314) rated their driving attributes relative to their peers. They also rated their likelihood of being involved in a crash relative to their peers (crash‐risk optimism), their crash history, stereotype of the young driver, and concern over another health issue. A self‐enhancement bias was found for all items in which self/other comparisons were made. These items formed two major factors, perceived relative driving ability and perceived relative driving caution. These factors and perceived luck relative to peers in avoiding crashes significantly predicted crash‐risk optimism. In Study 2, an experimental group of young drivers (N=173) watched safety advertisements that showed drinking and dangerous driving resulting in a crash, and a control group (N=193) watched advertisements showing people choosing not to drive after drinking. Each group then completed the self/other comparisons used in Study 1. The same factors were found, but only driving caution significantly predicted crash‐risk optimism. The experimental group showed more self‐enhancement on driving ability than the control group. In both studies, men showed substantially more self‐enhancement than women about their driving ability. Implications for safety interventions are discussed.     

A group size effect on personal risk judgments: implications for unrealistic optimism

In Experiments 1 and 2, college students (N = 32 and N = 18, respectively) read heart attack risk profiles (i.e., lists of risk factors) for each of several employees at a series of fictional companies and judged the heart attack risk of the typical employee at each company. In both experiments, subjects' risk judgments increased as a function of the number of employees at the companies. In Experiments 3A and 3B, college students (N = 56 and N = 33, respectively) judged the heart attack risk of the typical employee at a company and also judged the risk of each individual employee. In these experiments, the typical employee was generally judged to be at higher risk than the individual employees. This group size effect might help to explain unrealistic optimism--people's tendency to judge themselves to be at lower risk than their peers for negative life events. Furthermore, it can be modeled successfully within Fiedler's (1996) BIAS framework.     

Predicting Burnout Among HIV/AIDS and Oncology Health Care Workers

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between repressive coping, controllability, self-esteem and comparative optimism for health-related events. Repressors (low trait anxiety-high defensiveness) compared with both (a) specific control groups on anxiety and defensiveness (e.g., low-anxious, high-anxious and defensive high anxious) and (b) total nonrepressors were significantly more comparatively optimistic for health-related events. Repressors remained significantly more comparatively optimistic than total nonrepressors when self-esteem was partialled out.

For individual events, repressors differed in comparative optimism for events which were rated as high controllability. It is concluded that repressors are exhibiting comparative optimism over and above nonrepressor groups for events which are rated as controllable. These results suggest that comparative optimism findings may be exaggerated by not controlling for the disproportionate influence of repressors in skewing sample means. Suggestions for future studies are discussed.     

The contribution of visual persistence to the perceived duration of brief targets

Two experiments were conducted to examine the role of sensory persistence on tasks of perceived duration employing very brief visual stimuli. Using a standard temporal judgment task, the first experiment replicated both the “size effect” and “empty-filled” illusion reported by previous investigators. However, entirely comparable results were also found with a probematching task, which theoretically assesses the degree of persistence exhibited by a stimulus. The second experiment examined the effect of target luminance on perceived duration. Consistent with a sensory persistence interpretation, judgments of duration increased with increasing luminance. The results from the two experiments were discussed in terms of varying degrees of retinal persistence produced by different stimuli. This view was contrasted with currently dominant interpretations that postulate changes in perceived duration to reflect different information-processing requirements across stimulus conditions.     

The effects of binocular and motion-generated information on the perception of depth and height

The perception of distance and size in the presence of optical gradient information was investigated under four viewing conditions—binocular view with and without head motion, and monocular view with and without head motion. Subjects (60 adults) matched distance intervals (from 15 to 127 cm) and heights of a target triangle (from 5 to 15 cm) by adjusting the length of a metal tape. Both linear and power functions were fitted to each individual’s distance judgments, and the competing perceptual models were compared. For both models, it was found that binocular information was sufficient to specify relative, but not absolute, distance, that monocular information was sufficient to specify an orderly relation between target distance and judgment but not absolute distance, that average error was less in the binocular conditions, and that perceived distance was not affected in either condition by the addition of head motion. The analysis of size judgments revealed that monocular and binocular judgments did not differ, that matches made with and without head motion did not differ, and that, in all conditions, matches exceeded target heights by an average 30% to 40%. Judged size was also analyzed as a function of target distance. In all conditions but monocular view with head motion, the effect of distance was to increase size judgments. The distance judgments support the hypothesis (Purdy, 1958) that the binocular stimulus carries information that the monocular stimulus does not; they fail to support the hypothesis (Gibson, 1966) that observer motion adds information to the static stimulus. The size judgments support neither hypothesis but suggest an independence of perceived size from perceived distance.     

Comparative judgments of distal size: A chronometric analysis

Observers were required to make comparative judgments of the distal sizes of squares at various perceived distances in a pictorial array. It was predicted that observers would normalize distance prior to judgment. Chronometric analyses indicated that the time to make “same” judgments increased systematically with the relative distance of the two stimuli. The time required to make “different” judgments depended on the nature of the difference. When the stimuli differed in proximal size, distal size, and distance, response time increased with distance ratio. However, when the stimuli differed in distal size and distance but not proximal size, response time decreased with distance ratio. In addition, when the stimuli differed in both distal and proximal size but not distance, RT decreased with size ratio. These results are consistent with a class of models that incorporate distance normalization into the comparative size-judging process. These and alternative models are discussed.