Risk Perceptions and Comparative Optimism: Avoidance or Resilience?

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Amanda J. Dillard ◽

Erin M. Ellis

Keyword(s):

Health Behavior ◽

Risk Perceptions ◽

Dispositional Optimism ◽

Negative Events ◽

Unrealistic Optimism ◽

Positive Events ◽

Comparative Optimism ◽

Actual Risk ◽

Experience Good ◽

Positive Expectancy

When individuals are asked whether they will someday own their own home, enjoy a productive career, or develop a myriad of diseases, many are optimistic. Generally, they think they will experience more good than bad outcomes in life and they view themselves as more likely than similar others to experience the good things and less likely than others to experience the bad things. In the area of health behavior and communication, there are three primary types of optimism that have been defined and operationalized: (1) Dispositional optimism is the generalized positive expectancy that one will experience good outcomes. (2) Comparative optimism refers to the belief that one is either more likely than others to experience positive events or less likely than others to experience negative events. (3) Unrealistic optimism refers to an underestimation of one’s actual risk of experiencing some negative event. Although the three types of optimism may be correlated, their associations may be modest. Also, unlike dispositional optimism, which is an individual difference, comparative and unrealistic optimism are often risk perceptions about specific events and therefore can be defined as accurate or inaccurate. For this reason, the latter two types of optimism have sometimes been labeled the optimistic bias. Research on all three varieties of optimism affords opportunities to understand how optimism influences information processing in a health message or one’s behavioral intentions following the message.

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Risk perception and optimism during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.210904 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (11) ◽

Author(s):

Benjamin J. Kuper-Smith ◽

Lisa M. Doppelhofer ◽

Yulia Oganian ◽

Gabriela Rosenblau ◽

Christoph W. Korn

Keyword(s):

Risk Perception ◽

Risk Perceptions ◽

Longitudinal Design ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Protective Measures ◽

Optimism Bias ◽

Comparative Optimism ◽

Personal Risk ◽

Early Stages ◽

Available Information

Slowing the spread of COVID-19 requires people to actively change their lives by following protective practices, such as physical distancing and disinfecting their hands. Perceptions about the personal risk of COVID-19 may affect compliance with these practices. In this study, we assessed risk perception and optimism about COVID-19 in a multinational (UK, USA and Germany), longitudinal design during the early stages of the pandemic (16 March 2020; 1 April 2020; 20 May 2020). Our main findings are that (i) people showed a comparative optimism bias about getting infected and infecting others, but not for getting severe symptoms, (ii) this optimism bias did not change over time, (iii) optimism bias seemed to relate to perceived level of control over the action, (iv) risk perception was linked to publicly available information about the disorder, (v) people reported adhering closely to protective measures but these measures did not seem to be related to risk perception, and (vi) risk perception was related to questions about stress and anxiety. In additional cross-sectional samples, we replicated our most important findings. Our open and partly preregistered results provide detailed descriptions of risk perceptions and optimistic beliefs during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in three Western countries.

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Beliefs and Risk Perceptions About COVID-19: Evidence From Two Successive French Representative Surveys During Lockdown

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.619145 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Arthur E. Attema ◽

Olivier L’Haridon ◽

Jocelyn Raude ◽

Valérie Seror ◽

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

Prevalence Rate ◽

Risk Perceptions ◽

Disease Risk ◽

Subjective Assessment ◽

Comparative Optimism ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Dynamic View ◽

Self Assessments ◽

Individual Decisions

BackgroundThe outbreak of COVID-19 has been a major interrupting event, challenging how societies and individuals deal with risk. An essential determinant of the virus’ spread is a series of individual decisions, such as wearing face masks in public space. Those decisions depend on trade-offs between costs (or benefits) and risks, and beliefs are key to explain these.MethodsWe elicit beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown in France by means of surveys asking French citizens about their belief of the infection fatality ratio (IFR) for COVID-19, own risk to catch the disease, risk as perceived by others, and expected prevalence rate. Those self-assessments were measured twice during lockdown: about 2 weeks after lockdown started and about 2 weeks before lockdown ended. We also measured the quality of these beliefs with respect to available evidence at the time of the surveys, allowing us to assess the calibration of beliefs based on risk-related socio-demographics. Finally, comparing own risk to expected prevalence rates in the two successive surveys provides a dynamic view of comparative optimism with respect to the disease.ResultsThe risk perceptions are rather high in absolute terms and they increased between the two surveys. We found no evidence for an impact of personal experience with COVID-19 on beliefs and lower risk perceptions of the IFR when someone in the respondent’s family has been diagnosed with a disease. Answers to survey 1 confirmed this pattern with a clear indication that respondents were optimistic about their chances to catch COVID-19. However, in survey 2, respondents revealed comparative pessimism.ConclusionThe results show that respondents overestimated the probabilities to catch or die from COVID-19, which is not unusual and does not necessarily reflect a strong deviation from rational behavior. While a rational model explains why the own risk to catch COVID-19 rose between the two surveys, it does not explain why the subjective assessment of the IFR remained stable. The comparative pessimism in survey 2 was likely due to a concomitant increase in the respondents’ perceived chances to catch the disease and a decreased expected prevalence rate.

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