For example, participants were asked to estimate their chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease. They then presented participants with the average frequency that each event would occur. Sharot and colleagues (2011) conducted a study in which they asked participants to estimate how likely they were to experience negative events in their lives.
UNREALISTIC OPTIMISM EXAMPLE UPDATE
Why does the optimism bias happen? Why are we kidding ourselves with these optimistic thoughts? The optimism bias is maintained because people selectively update their beliefs about their futures in response to positive information. However, we are somehow able to maintain positive predictions about the future. We know from reading the news and keeping up to date on social media that horrible, tragic things happen each and every day. We should be very aware that certain negative events are likely to occur. We live in a world where we have access to all sorts of information at the tips of our fingers. College students are not the only people to show the optimism bias is seen across people of all races, age groups, and genders (Sharot, 2011). People tend to underestimate the likelihood of future negative events occurring. Students rated that their chances of experiencing positive events were significantly above average, while they predicted that their chances of experiencing a negative event was significantly below average (Weinstein, 1980).
The participants were then asked to rate how likely they were to experience each one of the events compared to how likely their classmates were to experience the events. Other events were negative, such as dropping out of college, developing cancer, and being injured in a car accident.
Some of the events were positive, including items like living past 80, graduating in the top third of the class, and not getting sick all winter. In this study, 200 college undergraduate students were given a list of 42 events to read and imagine. One of the first studies to experimentally explore the optimism bias took place at Rutgers University in 1980. Pessimism refers to the expectation that bad things will happen. Optimism, by definition, is the expectation that good things will happen. The optimism bias is the cognitive bias that leads us to overestimate the likelihood that a positive event will happen in our lives and underestimate the likelihood that a negative event will occur in our futures (Sharot, 2011). If you’ve ever had a conversation like this with yourself- one in which you underestimate the likelihood that negative events will impact your life – you have demonstrated the optimism bias. You’ll never get in that car accident and wind up as a trauma patient. You’ll never get sick like the fictitious characters of whom you’ve grown fond. You think about your own life and conclude that, at the end of the day, none of the tragedies in this medical soap opera could ever happen to you. As you exhaust your box of tissues, you wonder how producer Shonda Rhimes concocts these episodes. You watch episode after episode until you reach the heart wrenching season finale when a different favorite character dies in a tragic accident. You are shocked to find out that Izzie, a young doctor on the show, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. You’re watching Grey’s Anatomy, and you’re in the middle of season 5. You make some popcorn, grab your laptop and pull up Netflix. It’s a Saturday afternoon and you’ve decided to reward yourself with a lazy day. Imagine you’ve just finished a long, tiring week of classes.
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