Unrealistic Optimism

This article presents a review on how the optimism bias and overconfidence effects might affect the performance of an individual, and in particular, of a manager or a business owner. The former one appears to be an evolutionary adaptation responsible for a good mental health, and as such is being considered as one of the most consistent, prevalent, and robust biases documented in psychology and behavioral economics. Together with the latter one, these cognitive biases might result in persistent impression that chosen strategy is reasonable, even if a statistical evidence or past experience indicate the contrary. The paper also offers several ideas how to increase performance by reducing effects of an excessive optimism and confidence, even though sometimes just the mere awareness of them can do the trick.

У статті розглянуто способи планування майбутнього молоддю на теоретичному та емпіричному рівнях. Планування свого майбутнього є природнім процесом для будь-якої людини, що надає почуття впевненості у завтрашньому дні. З метою вивчення особливостей бачення власного майбутнього використовувалося авторська методика. Дані отримані у дослідженні вказують на переважаючий нереалістичний оптимізм молодих людей, які прийняли участь у дослідженні – подіям, що були оцінені позитивно надавалася висока ймовірність здійснення. При цьому події, котрі були оцінені як негативні вважалися малоймовірними. Досліджувані були впевненими у своєму майбутньому. Сфери пов'язані із спілкуванням мали високі оцінки та були високо ймовірними. Ключові слова: планування майбутнього, нереалістичний оптимізм, оцінка події, ймовірність події. Постановка проблеми у загальному вигляді та її зв'язок з важливими науковими та практичними завданнями. Сучасна молодь у своїх роздумах про майбутнє характеризується швидкими рішеннями, не проявляє схильності до надмірних зважувань усіх можливих перспектив. Умови життя сьогодення, а зокрема домінантність змін та швидкий ритм перебігу останніх не дають шансів скурпульозному плануванню на лонгітюдну перспективу. Відсутність впевненості у завтрашньому дні змушує відмовитися від передбачень того якими можуть бути наступні роки. Згадані обставини можуть призводити до повної відмови від планування та передбачення подій оскільки ці види діяльності втрачають свій повний сенс та значимість. Основною метою може бути тільки переживання актуальних життєвих подій [1]. Аналіз останніх досліджень та публікацій, в яких започатковано розв'язання даної проблеми і на які спирається автор. Проблематикою вивчення психологічних особливостей молоді у умовах суспільної нестабільності займалися У. Бек, Х. Свіда-Зєнба, Т. Лєвовіцкі, В. Сікорський [1; 5;3; 4]. Способи та шляхи планування майбутнього розглядалися та аналізувалися у працях Х. Свіди-Зєнби, Н. Вейнштейна, Н. Фішбейна та І. Айзена [5; 6; 2]. Вирішення невирішених раніше частин загальної проблеми, яким присвячується означена стаття. Планування свого майбутнього є природнім процесом для будь-якої людини, що у свою чергу надає почуття впевненості у завтрашньому дні. Молодь також повинна певним чином думати про своє майбутнє. У переважній більшості випадків у відповідь на запитання: " Яким буде Твоє майбутнє? " молода особа відповідає: " не знаю " , " ніколи не замислювався(лася) над цим " , " не хочу про це думати " [5]. Можна тільки спрбувати запланувати собі щось не значне, наприклад, що може статися у певному місці з конкретною людиною у чітко визначеному часі. Проте, з іншого боку спосіб життя сучасної молоді має свою логіку і не є тотальним хаосом. Юнаки та юнки прагнуть сконструювати своє майбутнє у короткотерміновій перспективі. Основною властивістю цих планів є еластичність, синхронність зі змінами та багатоваріантність. Можливо, коли бачення майбутнього уже не настільки непорушне і структуроване, то незреалізованість плану уже не викликає стресових переживань, а навпаки стає новим стимулом для побудови нових планів на ще коротший період часу і ще більш еластичних. Т. Левовіцкі вважає, що життєві плани – це сукупність цілей кожної людини а також засобів для їх реалізації. Автор прирівнює планування майбутнього молоддю до проектування бачення майбутнього. Уявні образи власного майбутнього перетворюються у реальні життєві плани, а згодом стають основними концептуальними поняттями. Відмінності у способах планування полягають у відмінностях тих соціальних середовищ до яких належать молоді люди, а також у колі інтересів та задіяності – що становлять основні джерела інформації про майбутні прагнення молоді [3]. Нейл Вейнштейн вважає, що оцінка інформації у умовах ризику та невпевненості, яка містить декілька варіантів розвитку подій, залежить від того наскільки легко чи важко можна буде уникнути негативних наслідків (або ж поборити їх). Саме тому, на думку автора у ситуації неокресленій, з непередбачуваними наслідками молода людина часто не планує та не робить важливих дій та вчинків. Відносно підходів до планування майбутнього Нейл Вейнштейн, який є автором теорії 

Psychological preparedness is defined as a phenomenon to face challenges in life as you
are able to understand, anticipate, recognize and manage your anxieties, stress, emotional
responses, and feel more confident, efficient in controlling situation and successfully cope in an
emergency situation (APS, 2007). A person faces so many challenges in his/her life and stress is
inevitable; we can't avoid it. So, better to be psychologically prepared for upcoming emergency
situations; not only for emergency we should be prepared for day-to-day regular life. Each
individual needs to be psychologically prepared for different stages in his life. Psychologically
preparedness is a phenomenon that has been studied so many times by the disaster management
researchers and health management scientists. Psychological preparedness is not being
emotionally invincible but about understanding how we are likely to react in a stressful situation
and employ strategies for better management of those psychological responses while attending
emergency responsibilities. Preparedness, a multi-faceted construct, is manifested at three levels:
Cognitive level, Emotional level and Instrumental level (Mashiach, & Dekel, 2012).
Psychological preparedness plays a crucial role in motivating people to take action in emergency
situation. Learning and utilizing skills such as stress inoculation, stress reduction and emotional
management can enhance psychological preparedness. There has been less focus on individual
psychological preparedness by psychologists so far. Past researches show that previously used
tools have been constructed to measure psychological preparedness for a specific purpose. It is
equally necessary to measure the individual’s psychological preparedness to deal effectively with
normal routine matters.
Models of Psychological preparedness e.g., A Social-Cognitive model of preparedness by
Paton et al. (2001a, b); Virtues/Strengths based combat preparedness and resilience model (Singh
& Gupta, communicated) have been developed for understanding of the concept of psychological
preparedness. It is evident that psychological preparedness can be a good predictor of
success/failure for upcoming future events and may also reduce the anxiety and mental health
related problems. Resilience, self-efficacy, mobility, lability, future orientation and unrealistic
optimism have an interactive relation with psychological preparedness. These variables may play
vital role in leading success/failure. Research findings indicate that psychological preparedness
plays an important role in emergency situation. A few attempts have made to study the role of psychological preparedness in daily routine life situation like: examination, interview, marriage,
job joining, and admission in a new course etc. So, Individual general life situation can be
divided into three time frame works extending over different lengths, three different time frame
works: (A) Life Events, (B) Life Episodes, and (C) Life Stages.
Detail review also depicts a scattered position of the concept of psychological
preparedness and a well woven construct eludes-could it be due to the absence of a general
measure or tool of psychological preparedness. The detail literature review raise some questions:
Whether psychological preparedness is a personality trait or anything else? Whether
psychological preparedness help in reducing anxiety, high satisfaction or predictor of
success/failure for upcoming future events? Whether moderators like (Resilience, mobility,
lability, self-efficacy, unrealistic optimism, and future orientation) play crucial role in predicting
success/failure or not? To find answers for all questions a model of psychological preparedness
was proposed and empirically tested in the present research.
The present research was aimed to assess predictive validity of psychological
preparedness with the criterion as success/failure or performance level/coping on upcoming life
event, episodes and stage.
Objectives
The major objectives of the study are:
I. To study the construct of psychological preparedness.
II. To study the moderators (resilience, mobility, lability, self-efficacy, time perspective and
unrealistic optimism) of psychological preparedness for task outcomes.
III. To study the predictive validity of the test scores and as well the construct of
psychological preparedness for future task outcome.
Hypotheses
I. Either a general component or a multi componential model is likely to emerge.
II. Moderators will be part of a variate.
III. There shall be significant or sizeable correlation between psychological preparedness and
task outcome.
To fulfill above objectives, correlational design was employed and 263 Ss were
contacted and enrolled in to three groups. Two-level assessment were conducted: level one
named as testing level and level two named as feedback level for outcome. Group-I: Those, who
were in the schools and preparing for their next competitive examination (life event). Group-II:
Those, who were in the school/college and preparing for their board/semester examination (life
episode). Group-III: Those who were selected for the jobs and were receiving their appointment
letters (Life stage) to join soon.
Psychological Preparedness Scale, Resilience Scale for Adults, Mobility Scale, Lability
Scale, Self-Efficacy Scale, Unrealistic Optimism and Future Orientation (Lines and Circle Test)
tools were used in the study along with the participant’s background details were obtained.
Performance measured in Group-I: marks in competitive examination, Group-II: marks % of
Board/Semester examination and Group-III: Self performance appraisal.
Major Findings of the present study
1. Construct of psychological preparedness is emerging as general construct without facets.
2. Psychological preparedness did not differ at gender level.
3. Psychological preparedness is a trait and is significantly related with Mobility, Lability,
Resilience and Future orientation.
4. Discriminant Functional Analysis found to be Mobility and Lability as a major
contributor to the variate (Psychological preparedness). Therefore, it was named as
Temperamental discriminant function.
5. Moderators (Resilience, Mobility, Lability, Self-efficacy, Future orientation and
Unrealistic optimism) can correctly classify high or low prepared group membership up
to 84% as revealed by discriminant function analysis.
6. Factor analysis identified “temperamental preparedness and capability beliefs”.
7. The factor of temperamental preparedness and capability beliefs and examination
performance (criterion) were related to each other through self-efficacy.
8. There was no direct relationship between the psychological preparedness and the
(examination performance).
Limitation: A standardized tool for the measurement of psychological preparedness for general
life situations was not available and limited empirical studies were available, so trends and gaps
were sketchy.Dropout rate was more than 50% at the time of feedback. The end variable was
operationalized as single outcome.
Suggestion: Advance technology based analysis should be used like IRT. Qualitative technique
like interview, storytelling, and behavior observation may be employed in future study to assess
preparedness as well the performance/outcome. More outcome or performance indicators can be
studied. To reduce dropout rate of feedback some incentives should be given.
Implication: A standardized tool of psychological preparedness can be useful for the
identification of low or high-prepared person. It can be used in organizational settings for
screening, deployment, sorting for special operation etc. including military context, career and
work counseling, recruitment, transfer, assignment of new project in organization, useful in
hospital setup for care-giver, staff and patient.
Personality development program can also focus on preparedness with cautions of
unrealistic optimism and linked self-efficacy. Unrealistic optimism tend to enhance future
orientation. Stabile and inert temperamental persons tend to be less prepared with lesser feelings
of self-efficacy and resilience. Thus, they need to be attended more for training people in
psychological preparedness. Mobile and labile persons are likely to be well prepared.

In an ideal world, our beliefs would satisfy norms of truth and rationality, as well as foster the acquisition, retention, and use of other relevant information. In reality, we have limited cognitive capacities and are subject to motivational biases on an everyday basis. We may also experience impairments in perception, memory, learning, and reasoning in the course of our lives. Such limitations and impairments give rise to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, and beliefs that are elaborated delusional, motivated delusional, or optimistically biased.

In this book, Lisa Bortolotti argues that some irrational beliefs qualify as epistemically innocent, where, in some contexts, the adoption, maintenance, or reporting of the beliefs delivers significant epistemic benefits that could not be easily attained otherwise. Epistemic innocence does not imply that the epistemic benefits of the irrational belief outweigh its epistemic costs, yet it clarifies the relationship between the epistemic and psychological effects of irrational beliefs on agency. It is misleading to assume that epistemic rationality and psychological adaptiveness always go hand-in-hand, but also that there is a straight-forward trade-off between them. Rather, epistemic irrationality can lead to psychological adaptiveness, which in turn can support the attainment of epistemic goals. Recognising the circumstances in which irrational beliefs enhance or restore epistemic performance informs our mutual interactions and enables us to take measures to reduce their irrationality without undermining the conditions for epistemic success.

When individuals display cognitive biases, they are prone to developing systematically false beliefs. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that rather than being a flaw in human cognition, biases may actually be design features. In my paper, I assess the claim that unrealistic optimism is such a design feature because it is a form of error management. Proponents of this theory say that when individuals make decisions under uncertainty, it can be advantageous to err on the side of overconfidence if the potential gains through success are high and the costs of failure are low. I argue that there are a number of conceptual problems in matching the theory with the existing data. I also show that there is empirical evidence against the error management hypothesis.

Ideally, we would have beliefs that satisfy norms of truth and rationality, as well as fostering the acquisition, retention and use of other relevant information. In reality, we have limited cognitive capacities and are subject to motivational biases on an everyday basis, and may also experience impairments in perception, memory, learning, and reasoning in the course of our lives. Such limitations and impairments give rise to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, elaborated delusional beliefs, motivated delusional beliefs, and optimistically biased beliefs. In the book, Bortolotti argues that some irrational beliefs qualify as epistemically innocent, where the notion of epistemic innocence captures the fact that in some contexts the adoption, maintenance or reporting of the beliefs delivers significant epistemic benefits that could not be easily attained otherwise. Epistemic innocence is a weaker notion than epistemic justification, as it does not imply that the epist...

Współczesna rzeczywistość jest niestabilna, niepewna i niespokojna. Kryzys finansowy, a w jego następstwie kryzys ekonomiczny, którego doświadczamy od pierwszej dekady XXI w., przyczynił się do wzrostu bezrobocia zwłaszcza wśród pokolenia młodych dorosłych. Pociągnęło to za sobą szereg następstw, jak odraczanie decyzji o zakładaniu rodziny czy powrót po ukończe-niu studiów do " rodzinnego gniazda ". Z drugiej strony transformacje współczesnej rzeczywistości dotyczą zjawisk, które można rozpatrywać w kategoriach pozytywnych. Gwałtowny, niezwykle in-tensywny rozwój nowoczesnych technologii cyfrowych otwiera przed współczesnym człowiekiem granice nie tylko związane z miejscem zamieszkania czy pracy, ale również ułatwia dostęp do dóbr intelektualnych. Zasygnalizowane transformacje wpływają na funkcjonowanie młodego pokolenia, odbijają się na codziennym życiu i wpływają na oczekiwania dotyczące przyszłości. Powodują też zmiany realizacji zadań rozwojowych. Celem prezentowanych badań było przeprowadzenie charak-terystyki porównawczej oczekiwań oraz nastawienia przyszłościowego młodych Polaków i Ukra-ińców w warunkach transformacji społecznych. W badaniach zastosowano Zmodyfikowaną Skalę Strategicznego Podejścia do Stresu, " drabinę Cantrila " oraz ankietę autorską L. Oryshchyn Wizja przyszłości. Uzyskane wyniki wskazują na wprawdzie optymistyczne, lecz zróżnicowane nastawie-nie wobec przyszłości obu badanych grup narodowościowych. Słowa kluczowe: transformacje społeczne; wkraczanie w dorosłość; zadania rozwojowe; oczekiwania życiowe

Exceptionalism is the view that one group is better than other groups and, by virtue of its alleged superiority, is not subject to the same constraints. Here we identify national exceptionalism in the responses made by political leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom to the covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. First, we observe that responses appealed to national values and national character and were marked by a denial of the severity of the situation. Second, we suggest an analogy between national exceptionalism and unrealistic optimism, i.e., people’s tendency to make rosier predictions about their future than is warranted by the evidence due to illusions of superiority and control. Finally, we argue that, at the national level, exceptionalism gave rise to an assumption of invulnerability that made for slow responses to the pandemic, and at the individual level, it served as a justification of people’s failures to adopt safety behaviors.

This paper gives particular attention to the work of MIT Professor Sherry Turkle in order to illustrate the central arguments that 1) modern technology such as smart phones, social media and other media applications are changing our perceptions of each other through the presentation of “positive” social images, 2) These social ideals are changing the nature of our human interactions from substantial to convenient, and 3) that this lack of ability to have substantive human connection coupled with media violence is creating further feelings of individual isolation, which in turn is leading to a need for heightened sensationalism or an “extreme” mentality.  I will attempt to synthesize all of this information in order to illustrate my belief that while modern technology can have positive effects on our daily lives, it is ultimately important for us to realize the psychological and potentially physical harm that we could be doing to each other and to ourselves by using it as a replacement for substantive human connection too often. Further, I posit that real, human interaction is the only way that we can understand the realities of life.

This book is a narrative by the 17th century philosopher Voltaire with Candide as the protagonist. It was written shortly after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake as a reaction to the philosophy of Alexander Pope "whatever is, is right" and Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason, that everything has been created to God's purpose therefore it must be the best that it can be.

People tend to believe they are more (less) likely to experience positive (negative) outcomes than similar others. While research has consistently shown that feeling unrealistically optimistic about future events influences the adoption of self-protective behaviors, much less is known about the opposite relationship. We address this gap by examining whether and how self-protective behaviors influence unrealistic optimism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across two preregistered, high-powered experiments (N = 4,707), we document a generalized unrealistic optimism about the health risks associated with COVID-19. Critically, we show that prompting people to think about a precautionary behavior they often perform (i.e., mask wearing) magnifies this preexisting tendency. Egocentrism, but not self-enhancement and/or better-than-average effects, helps to explain the phenomenon. Theoretical contributions and substantive implications to health risk research and policy are discussed. Public Significance Statement This research shows that past self-protective behaviors (e.g., mask wearing) enhance people's propensity to feel unrealistically safer than similar others. This finding suggests that although encouraging precautionary measures is fundamental to boost self-protection, communication strategies should not just focus on the safety benefits of such measures, but also ask individuals to be wary of this potential unintended psychological consequence.

Does optimism lead to success? Friends of optimism argue that positive beliefs about ourselves and our future contribute to fitness and mental health, and are correlated with good functioning, productivity, resilience, and pro-social behaviour. Sceptics, instead, claim that when we are optimistic we fail to react constructively to negative feedback, and put ourselves at risk because we underestimate threats. Thus, it is controversial whether optimistic beliefs are conducive to success, intended as the fulfilment of our goals in a given domain. According to the traditional view, optimistic beliefs lead to success when they do not involve any distortion of reality, and according to the trade-off view, they lead to success when they involve a distortion of reality, but a small one. Based on the literature about positive illusions in the perception of romantic partners and in the assessment of future health prospects, I suggest that optimistic beliefs lead to goal attainment when they support agency by contributing to the sense that we are competent and efficacious agents and that our goals are both desirable and attainable.

Though optimism and self-enhancing deception are related, few researchers have tried to disentangle their relations to particular outcomes. Using a person-centered approach and longitudinal data, this paper reports comparisons between defensive and non-defensive optimists. Results suggest that defensive optimists may be less successful at forming intimate, supportive relationships with others over time, relative to non-defensive optimists. Further research should be directed toward understanding both the costs and the benefits of defensive psychological processes and optimism, especially as they may vary across different kinds of outcomes, and different intrapsychic, social, cultural, and developmental contexts.