The optimistic bias is defined as judging one's own risk as less than the risk of others. Researchers have identified numerous personal and situational factors that moderate the extent to which people display the bias. It is unclear, however, whether these moderators affect the bias by influencing people's personal risk estimates or their risk estimates for a target. A review of moderators of the optimistic bias reveals evidence for both influences. Moderators associated with negative affect (negative mood, dysphoria, trait and state anxiety, event severity, and proximity of feedback) and control related moderators (perceived control and prior experience) appear primarily to affect personal risk estimates. Positive mood affects target risk estimates. Finally, moderators that surround the comparison process appear to have different effects. Specifically, the type of comparison target appears to affect target risk estimates, whereas attention to personal risk-related behaviors affects personal risk estimates.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abele, A., & Hermer, P. (1993). Mood influences on health-related judgments: Appraisal of own health versus appraisal of unhealthy behaviors. European Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 613-625.
2.
Alicke, M. D., Klotz, M. L., Breitenbecher, D. L., Yurak, T. J., & Vredenburg, D. S. (1995). Personal contact, individuation, and the better-than-average effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 804-825.
3.
Alloy, L. B., & Ahrens, A. H. (1987). Depression and pessimism for the future: Biased use of statistically relevant information in predictions for self versus others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 366-378.
4.
Andriessen, J. H. T. H., & van Cadsand, J. P. (1983). Een analyse van de Nederlandse I. E.-schaal [An analysis of the Dutch I. E. scale]. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie, 38, 7-24.
5.
Armor, D. A., & Taylor, S. E. (1998). Situated optimism: Specific outcome expectancies and self-regulation. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 309-379). New York: Academic.
6.
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
7.
Beck, A. T. (1967). Depression: Clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects. New York: International Universities Press.
8.
Becker, M. H. (Ed.). (1974). The Health Belief Model and personal health behavior. Health Education Monographs, 2, 326-473.
9.
Becker, M. H., & Rosenstock, I. M. (1987). Comparing social learning theory and the health belief model. Advances in Health Education and Promotion, 2, 245-249.
10.
Blalock, S. J., DeVellis, B. M., & Afifi, R. A. (1990). Risk perceptions and participation in colorectal cancer screening. Health Psychology, 9, 692-806.
11.
Burger, J. M., & Burns, L. (1988). The illusion of unique invulnerability and the use of effective contraception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14, 264-270.
12.
Burger, J. M., & Palmer, M. L. (1992). Changes in and generalization of unrealistic optimism following experiences with stressful events: Reactions to the 1989 California earthquake. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 39-43.
13.
Butler, G., & Mathews, A. (1987). Anticipatory anxiety and risk perception. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 11, 551-565.
14.
Cleary, P. D. (1987). Why people take precautions against health risks. In N. D. Weinstein (Ed.), Taking care. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
15.
Cohn, L. D., Macfarlane, S., Yanez. C., & Imai, W. K. (1995). Risk-perception: Differences between adolescents and adults. Health Psychology, 14, 217-222.
16.
Cummings, K. M., Becker, M. H., & Maile, M. C. (1980). Bringing the models together: An empirical approach to combining variables used to explain health actions. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 3, 123-145.
17.
Dewberry, C., Ing, M., James, S., Nixon, M., & Richardson, S. (1990). Anxiety and unrealistic optimism. Journal of Social Psychology; 130, 151-156.
18.
Dewberry, C., & Richardson, S. (1990). Effect of anxiety on optimism. Journal of Social Psychology, 130, 731-738.
19.
Dolinski, D.. Gromski, W., & Zawisza, E. (1987). Unrealistic pessimism. Journal of Social Psychology, 127, 511-516.
20.
Drake, R. A. (1984). Lateral asymmetry of personal optimism. Journal of Research in Personality, 18, 497-507.
21.
Drake, R. A. (1987). Conception of own versus others' outcomes: Manipulation of monaural attentional orientation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 17, 373-375.
22.
Drake, R. A., & Ulrich, G. (1992). Line bisecting as a predictor of personal optimism and desirability of risky behavior. Acta Psychologia, 79, 219-226.
23.
Dunning, D., & Story, A. L. (1991). Depression, realism, and the overconfidence effect: Are the sadder wiser when predicting future actions and events?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 521-532.
24.
Eiser, J. R., Eiser, C., & Pauwels, P. (1993). Skin cancer: Assessing perceived risk and behavioural attitudes. Psychology and Health, 8, 393-404.
25.
Eysenck, M. W., & Derakshan, N. (1997). Cognitive biases for future negative events as a function of trait anxiety and social desirability. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 597-605.
26.
Frieze, I. H., Hymer, S., & Greenberg, M. S. (1987). Describing the crime victim: Psychological reactions to victimization. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 18, 299-315.
27.
Gerrard, M., Gibbons, F. X., & Warner, T. D. (1991). Effects of reviewing risk-relevant behavior on perceived vulnerability among women Marines. Health Psychology, 10, 173-179.
28.
Gerrard, M., & Warner, T. D. (1994). A comparison of women Marine's and college women's HIV-relevant behaviors. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 73-88.
29.
Gilligan, S. G., & Bower, G. H. (1984). Cognitive consequences of emotional arousal. In C. E. Izard, J. Kagan, & R. Zajonc (Eds.), Emotions, cognition, and behavior (pp. 547-588). New York: Cambridge University Press.
30.
Gladis, M., Michela, J. L., Walter, H. J., & Vaughan, R. D. (1992). High school students' perceptions of AIDS risk: Realistic appraisal or motivated denial?Health Psychology, 11, 307-316.
31.
Gochman, D. S., Bagramian, R. A., & Sheiham, A. (1972). Consistency in children's perceptions of vulnerability to health problems. Health Services Reports, 87, 282-288.
32.
Hansen, W. B., Hahn, G. L., & Wolkenstein, B. H. (1990). Perceived personal immunity: Beliefs about susceptibility to AIDS. Journal of Sex Research, 27, 622-628.
33.
Hansen, W. B., & Malotte, C. K. (1986). Perceived personal immunity: The development of beliefs about susceptibility to the consequences of smoking. Preventive Medicine, 15, 363-372.
34.
Harris, P. R. (1996). Sufficient grounds for optimism? The relationship between perceived controllability and optimistic bias. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 9-52.
35.
Harris, P., & Middleton, W. (1994). The illusion of control and optimism about health: On being less at risk but no more in control than others. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 369-386.
36.
Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1995). Cultural variation in unrealistic optimism: Does the West feel more invulnerable than the East?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 595-607.
37.
Helweg-Larsen, M. (1994). Why it won't happen to me: A cross-cultural investigation of social comparison as a cause of the optimistic bias (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990). Dissertation Abstracts International, 55-11B, 5124.
38.
Helweg-Larsen, M. (1999). (The lack of) optimistic biases in response to the Northridge earthquake: The role of personal experience. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 21, 119-129.
39.
Hoorens, V. (1996). Self-favoring biases for positive and negative characteristics: Independent phenomena?Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 53-67.
40.
Hoorens, V., & Buunk, B. P. (1993). Social comparison of health risks: Locus of control, the person-positivity bias, and unrealistic optimism. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 291-302.
41.
Janz, N. K., & Becker, M. H. (1984). The health belief model: A decade later. Health Education Quarterly11, 1-47.
42.
Kirscht, J. P., Haefner, D. P., Kegeles, F. S., & Rosenstock, I. M. (1966). A national study of health beliefs. Journal of Health and Human Behavior, 7, 248-254.
43.
Klar, Y., Medding, A., & Sarel, D. (1996). Nonunique vulnerability: Singular versus distributional probabilities and unrealistic optimism in comparative risk judgments. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67, 229-245.
44.
Klein, C. T. F., & Helweg-Larsen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of the controllability-optimistic bias link: The relationship and its moderators. Unpublished manuscript, Transylvania University, Lexington, KY.
45.
Klein, W. M. (1996). Maintaining self-serving social comparisons: Attenuating the perceived significance of risk-increasing behaviors. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 120-142.
46.
Klein, W. M. (1997). Objective standards are not enough: Affective, self-evaluative, and behavioral responses to social comparison information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 763-774.
47.
Klein, W. M., & Kunda, Z. (1994). Exaggerated self-assessments and the preference for controllable risks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 59, 410-427.
48.
Klein, W. M., & Weinstein, N. D. (1997). Social comparison and unrealistic optimism about personal risk. In B. P. Buunk & F. X. Gibbons (Eds.), Health, coping, and social comparison (pp.25-61). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
49.
Kreuter, M. W., & Strecher, V. J. (1995). Changing inaccurate perceptions of health risk: Results from a randomized trial. Health Psychology, 14, 56-63.
50.
Kuiper, N. A., MacDonald, M. R., & Derry, P. A. (1983). Parameters of a depressive self-schema. In J. Suls & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychological perspectives on the self (Vol. 2, pp. 191-217). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
51.
Larwood, L. (1978). Swine flu: A study of self-serving biases. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 8, 283-289.
52.
Larwood, L., & Whittaker, W. (1977). Managerial myopia: Self-serving biases in organizational planning. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 194-198.
53.
Lee, C. (1989). Perceptions of immunity to disease in adult smokers. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 12, 267-277.
54.
Linville, P. W., Fischer, G. W., & Fischoff, B. (1993). AIDS risk perception and decision bias. In J. D. Pryor & G. D. Reeder (Eds.), The social psychology of HIV infection (pp. 5-38). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
55.
Marks, G., & Miller, N. (1987). Ten years of research on the false-consensus effect: An empirical and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 72-90.
56.
McKenna, F. P. (1993). It won't happen to me: Unrealistic optimism or illusion of control?British Journal of Psychology, 84, 39-50.
57.
McKenna, F. P., Stainer, R. A., & Lewis, C. (1991). Factors underlying illusory self-assessment of driving skill in males and females. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 23, 45-52.
58.
McKenna, F. P., Warburton, D. M., & Winwood, M. (1993). Exploring the limits of optimism: The case of smokers' decision making. British Journal of Psychology, 84, 389-394.
59.
Middleton, W., Harris, P., & Surman, M. (1996). Give 'em enough rope: Perception of health and safety risks in bungee jumpers. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 68-79.
60.
Miller, A. G., Ashton, W. A., & McHoskey, J. W. (1990). What price attractiveness? Stereotype and risk factors in suntanning behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20, 1272-1300.
61.
Moore, S., & Rosenthal, D. (1991). Adolescents' perceptions of friends' and parents' attitudes to sex and sexual risk-taking. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 3, 189-200.
62.
Myers, L. B., & Brewin, C. R. (1996). Illusions of well-being and the repressive coping cycle. British Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 443-457.
63.
Nesse, R. M., & Klaas, R. (1994). Risk perception by patients with anxiety disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 182, 465-470.
64.
Otten, W., & van der Pligt, J. (1996). Context effects in the measurement of comparative optimism in probability judgments. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 80-101.
65.
Perloff, L. S., & Fetzer, B. K. (1986). Self-other judgments and perceived vulnerability to victimization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 502-510.
66.
Pietromonaco, P. R., & Markus, H. (1985). The nature of negative thoughts in depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 799-807.
67.
Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (1985). Depression and preference for self-focusing stimuli after success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1066-1075.
68.
Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (1986). Evidence for a depressive self-focusing style. Journal of Research in Personality, 20, 95-100.
69.
Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (1987). Self-regulatory perseveration and the depressive self-focusing style: A self-awareness theory of reactive depression. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 122-138.
70.
Pyszczynski, T., Holt, K., & Greenberg, J. (1987). Depression, self-focused attention, and expectancies for positive and negative future life events for self and others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 994-1001.
71.
Quadrel, M. J., Fischhoff, B., & Davis, W. (1993). Adolescent (in)vulnerability. American Psychologist, 48, 102-116.
72.
Regan, P. C., Snyder, M., & Kassin, S. M. (1995). Unrealistic optimism, self-enhancement or person positivity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1073-1082.
73.
Riche, J. M., & Thelen, M. H. (1990). Children's health comparisons of their parents with specific others. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 19, 205-210.
74.
Rothman, A. J., Klein, W. M., & Weinstein, N. D. (1996). Absolute and relative biases in estimations of personal risk. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26, 1213-1236.
75.
Salovey, P., & Birnbaum, D. (1989). Influence of mood on health-relevant cognitions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 539-551.
76.
Sheer, V. C., & Cline, R. J. (1994). The development and validation of a model explaining sexual behavior among college students: Implications for AIDS communication campaign. Human Communication Research, 21, 280-304.
77.
Shepperd, J. A. (2000). Interpreting relative risk estimates: Optimism in personal estimates vs. pessimism in target estimates. Unpublished manuscript, University of Florida, Gainesville.
78.
Shepperd, J. A., & McNulty, J. (2000). The affective consequences of expected and unexpected outcomes. Unpublished manuscript, University of Florida, Gainesville.
79.
Shepperd, J. A., Ouellette, J. A., & Fernandez, J. K. (1996). Abandoning unrealistic optimism: Performance estimates and the temporal proximity of self-relevant feedback. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 844-855.
80.
Sparks, P., Shepherd, R., Wiering, N., & Zimmermanns, N. (1995). Perceived behavioural control, unrealistic optimism and dietary change: An exploratory study. Appetite, 24, 243-255.
81.
Stapel, D. A., & Velthuijsen, A. S. (1996). “Just as if it happened to me”: The impact of vivid and self-relevant information on risk judgments. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 102-119.
82.
Strecher, V. J., Kreuter, M. W., & Kobrin, S. C. (1995). Do cigarette smokers have unrealistic perceptions of their heart attack, cancer, and stroke risks?Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 18, 45-54.
83.
Taylor, K. M., & Shepperd, J. A. (1998). Bracing for the worst: Severity, testing and feedback as moderators of the optimistic bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 915-926.
84.
Taylor, S. E., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1995). Effects of mindset on positive illusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 213-226.
85.
van der Velde, F. W., Hooykaas, C., & van der Pligt, J. (1992). Risk perception and behavior: Pessimism, realism, and optimism about AIDS-related health behavior. Psychology and Health, 6, 23-38.
86.
van der Velde, F. W., & van der Pligt, J. (1991). AIDS-related health behaviour: Coping, protection motivation, and previous behavior. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 14, 429-451.
87.
van der Velde, F. W., van der Pligt, J., & Hooykaas, C. (1994). Perceiving AIDS-related risk: Accuracy as a function of differences in actual risk. Health Psychology, 13, 25-33.
88.
Vaughan, E. (1993). Chronic exposure to an environmental hazard: Risk perceptions and self-protective behavior. Health Psychology, 12, 72-83.
89.
Weinstein, N. D. (1980). Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 806-820.
90.
Weinstein, N. D. (1982). Unrealistic optimism about susceptibility to health problems. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 5, 441-460.
91.
Weinstein, N. D. (1983). Reducing unrealistic optimism about illness susceptibility. Health Psychology, 2, 11-20.
92.
Weinstein, N. D. (1987). Unrealistic optimism about susceptibility to health problems: Conclusions from a community-wide sample. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 10, 481-500.
93.
Weinstein, N. D. (1989). Perceptions of personal susceptibility to harm. In V. M. Hays, G. W. Albee, & S. F. Schneider (Eds.), Primary prevention of AIDS: Psychological approaches (pp. 142-167). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
94.
Weinstein, N. D., & Klein, W. M. (1996). Unrealistic optimism: Present and future. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 1-8.
95.
Weinstein, N. D., & Lachendro, E. (1982). Egocentrism as a source of unrealistic optiminsm. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 195-200.
96.
Weinstein, N. D., Sandman, P. M., & Roberts, N. E. (1990). Determinants of self-protective behavior: Home radon testing. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20, 783-801.
97.
Welkenhuysen, M., Evers-Kiebooms, G., Decruyenaere, M., & van den Berghe, H. (1996). Unrealistic optimism and genetic risk. Psychology and Health, 11, 479-492.
98.
Whitley, B. E., & Hem, A. L. (1991). Perceptions of vulnerability to pregnancy and the use of effective contraception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 104-110.
99.
Zakay, D. (1984). The influence of perceived event's controllability on its subjective occurrence probability. Psychological Record, 34, 233-240.
100.
Zakay, D., Zur, N., & Tsal, Y. (1996). The relativity of unrealistic optimism. Acta Psychologica, 93, 121-134.
