The Price of Optimism

Gassen, J., Nowak, T. J., Henderson, A. D., Weaver, S. P., Baker, E. J., & Muehlenbein, M. P. (2021). Unrealistic Optimism and Risk for COVID-19 Disease. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 647461. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647461

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. See link for full article