Egocentrism and focalism in unrealistic optimism (and pessimism)

Unrealistic Optimism: Still a Neglected Trait

“…In this case, the comparative analysis interpretation can not be applied. It should be mentioned, however, that some studies do ask about individuals' beliefs when compared to the 'median' (Kruger & Burrus, 2004).…”

“…Evidence shows, though, that the optimistic bias is related more to (absolute) unrealistic optimism than just to an inappropriate comparison group (e.g. (Kruger & Burrus, 2004;Weinstein & Lachendro, 1982)). Weinstein's (1980) pioneer study examined a range of positive and negative real life events that could occur sometime in the future to determine the extent of (comparative) UO and the conditions under which it is more likely to occur.…”

Objective Standards Matter too Much: The Use and Abuse of Absolute and Comparative Performance Feedback in Absolute and Comparative Judgments and Decisions

“…For example, Moore and Kim (2003) found that people playing a competitive game were more confident that they would win the game if the task was easy than if it was difficult, suggesting they failed to adequately consider others, and instead focused myopically on their own solo performances even when explicitly asked to compare themselves with others (for similar results, see Chambers, Windschitl, & Suls, 2003;Hoelzl & Rustichini, 2005;Kruger & Burrus, 2004;Windschitl, Kruger, & Simms, 2003). This "solo comparison effect" describes the tendency for comparative judgments to be excessively influenced by perceptions of absolute standing.…”

Exploring a new theory of successful aging among low-income older adults in an independent and assisted living community.

“…Specifically, optimism greater than expected based on objective measures was identified repeatedly in the present study. A tendency to be overly optimistic is one of the most common of all psychological errors (Myers, 2002), i.e., an inherent cognitive bias toward underestimating difficulty and overestimating ability (Kruger & Burrus, 2004 Other potential factors which the literature suggests might be associated with successful aging include: resilience (Lee, Brown, Mitchell, & Schiraldi, 2008), selfefficacy (Bandura, 1989;Lovelace, 1990;McAvay, Seeman, & Rodin, 1996), psychological empowerment (Jones & Rose, 2005;McCarthy, 2008;Richard, Gauvin, Gosselin & Laforest, 2009), and a sense of control (Heckhausen & Dweck, 1998;Wolinsky, Wyrwich, Babu, Kroenke, & Tierney, 2003). Studies with larger samples are needed to identify additional predictors which might increase the variability explained by the model.…”