Journal article
Do People Prescribe Optimism, Overoptimism, or Neither?
Psychological science, Vol.32(10), pp.1605-1616
10/2021
DOI: 10.1177/09567976211004545
PMID: 34473591
Abstract
Past work has suggested that people prescribe optimism—believing it is better to be optimistic, instead of accurate or pessimistic, about uncertain future events. Here, we identified and addressed an important ambiguity about whether those findings reflect an endorsement of biased beliefs—that is, whether people prescribe likelihood estimates that reflect overoptimism. In three studies, participants ( N = 663 U.S. university students) read scenarios about protagonists facing uncertain events with a desired outcome. Results replicated prescriptions of optimism when we used the same solicitations as in past work. However, we found quite different prescriptions when using alternative solicitations that asked about potential bias in likelihood estimations and that did not involve vague terms such as “optimistic.” Participants generally prescribed being optimistic, feeling optimistic, and even thinking optimistically about the events, but they did not prescribe overestimating the likelihood of those events.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Do People Prescribe Optimism, Overoptimism, or Neither?
- Creators
- Jane E Miller - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of IowaInkyung Park - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of IowaAndrew R Smith - Department of Psychology, Appalachian State UniversityPaul D Windschitl - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Psychological science, Vol.32(10), pp.1605-1616
- DOI
- 10.1177/09567976211004545
- PMID
- 34473591
- NLM abbreviation
- Psychol Sci
- ISSN
- 0956-7976
- eISSN
- 1467-9280
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000001, name: National Science Foundation, award: SES-1851738
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/2021
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984213400602771
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