“…Weinstein (1980) accordingly dubbed the belief ''unrealistic optimism'' (UO). UO has been documented for many health outcomes, for example, contracting breast cancer (Absetz, Aro, Rehnberg, & Sutton, 2000), contracting skin cancer (Clarke, Williams, & Arthey, 1997), becoming infected with HIV (e.g., Gold & Aucote, 2003), having a heart attack (e.g., Weinstein & Klein, 1995), contracting mononucleosis (Chandran & Menon, 2004), becoming addicted to drugs (e.g., Cohn, Macfarlane, Imai, & Yanez, 1995), having an unwanted pregnancy (e.g., Burger & Burns, 1988), and developing smoking-related illness (e.g., Reppucci, Revenson, Aber, & Reppucci, 1991). From an applied perspective, the phenomenon is important because thinking one is at less risk than others may make one less inclined to engage in preventive behaviours (Helweg-Larsen & Shepperd, 2001;Klein & Weinstein, 1997).…”