Comparative optimism about health and nonhealth events in 8- and 9-year-old children. |
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| Authors: | Ian P Albery David Messer |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Psychology, London South Bank University, London, United Kingdom. alberyip@lsbu.ac.uk |
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| Abstract: | Comparative optimism has been studied extensively in adults and is a significant component of social- cognitive models about health. In contrast, little is known about comparative optimism in children or about the wider social- cognitive processes that underpin their health-related behavior. This study investigated comparative optimism for health- and nonhealth-related topics in 101 children 8 or 9 years of age, the youngest ages that have been investigated so far. Children were shown to be unrealistically optimistic for health and nonhealth events. The implications of these findings for understanding comparative optimism in children are discussed. |
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