bargainsrefa.blogg.se

UO has been found not only in student samples and in the general population (e.g., Weinstein, 1980, 1982, 1987) but also in populations at enhanced health risk such as smokers with respect to lung cancer (Weinstein, 2005) or homosexual men with respect to infection with HIV (Gold, 2004, 2006).

The term ‘unrealistic optimism’ (UO) refers to the human tendency to overestimate the probability of positive events and to underestimate the probability of negative events happening to oneself in the future. To assess overestimation of the personal (as opposed to the general) likelihood of experiencing threats and other negative events, researchers (e.g., Moritz & Jelinek, 2009 Niemeyer, Moritz, & Pietrowsky, 2013) have employed the paradigm of ‘unrealistic optimism’ (e.g., Weinstein, 1980), thus allowing more detailed insights on mechanisms in models of and interventions for OCD. Items on the Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire (OBQ OCCWG, 2001), a self‐rating measure of cognitive biases related to OCD, capture general overestimation of the likelihood of negative events as well as overestimation of the personal likelihood of experiencing negative events, but it measures OET as a single entity. The Obsessive Compulsive Cognitions Working Group (OCCWG) has identified overestimation of threat (OET) – along with inflated responsibility, perfectionism, intolerance of uncertainty, and importance and control of thoughts – as a central cognitive bias in OCD (OCCWG, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2005). These key symptoms have been linked to cognitive biases in cognitive models of OCD and/or obsessive‐compulsive symptoms (OCS Salkovskis, 1985, 1989). Compare Lake Wobegon effect, overconfidence effect.Obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) is defined by intrusive obsessions and repetitive compulsions that are often centered around potential harm to oneself and others, such as through contagion. See also depressive realism, hypomanic episode. Weinstein asked students to estimate the relative likelihoods of various events happening to them, compared to the likelihoods of the same events happening to their peers, and his results showed that they rated their chances of experiencing positive events, such as owning your own home, receiving a good job offer before graduation, and living past 80, to be significantly above the average for students of the same sex at the same university, and their chances of experiencing negative events, such as having a heart attack before age 40, being sued by someone, and being the victim of a mugging, to be significantly below average. It was first reported in 1925 by the US psychologist F(rederick) H(ansen) Lund (1894–1965) and in 1938 by the US psychologist (Albert) Hadley Cantril (1906–69), and it came to prominence in 1980 when it was studied rigorously and named by the US psychologist Neil D(avid) Weinstein (born 1945) in an article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

A judgemental bias that tends to affect people's subjective estimates of the likelihood of future events in their lives, causing them to overestimate the likelihood of positive or desirable events and to underestimate the likelihood of negative or undesirable events.