Do people desire optimism from others during a novel global crisis?

During a global crisis, does the desire for good news also mean an endorsement of an optimistic bias? Five pre‐registered studies, conducted at the start of the COVID pandemic, examined people's lay prescriptions for thinking about uncertainty—specifically whether they thought forecasters shoul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of behavioral decision making Vol. 37; no. 1
Main Authors Miller, Jane E., Strueder, Jeremy D., Park, Inkyung, Windschitl, Paul D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chichester Wiley Periodicals Inc 01.01.2024
Subjects
Bias
Desire
estimation
forecasting
Good news
judgments
Justification
News
Optimism
Pandemics
Prescription drugs
Protective factors
Public officials
Uncertainty
Vaccine development
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Summary:During a global crisis, does the desire for good news also mean an endorsement of an optimistic bias? Five pre‐registered studies, conducted at the start of the COVID pandemic, examined people's lay prescriptions for thinking about uncertainty—specifically whether they thought forecasters should be optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic in how they estimated key likelihoods. Participants gave prescriptions for forecasters with different roles (e.g., self, family member, and public official) and for several key outcomes (e.g., contracting COVID and vaccine development). Overall, prescribed optimism was not the norm. In fact, for negative outcomes that were of high concern, participants generally wanted others to have a pessimistic bias in how they estimated likelihoods. For positive outcomes, people favored more accurate estimation. These patterns held regardless of the assumed forecaster's role. A common justification for advocating for a pessimistic bias in forecasts was to increase others' engagement in protective or preventative behaviors.
Bibliography:Funding information
This work was supported by Grant SES‐1851738 to Paul Windschitl and Andrew Smith from the National Science Foundation.
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ISSN:0894-3257
1099-0771
DOI:10.1002/bdm.2362