Impact of unrealistic optimism on the risk of contamination during the home confinement of COVID-19 in Algeria

Abstract

Objective: The study was conducted to investigate the impact of unrealistic optimism on the risk of contamination at home confinement and its association with certain social variables.Methods: This survey study was conducted to describe the level of unrealistic optimism and its association with some social variables. The participants (n = 558, 60.6% females and 39.4 males) subjectively evaluated the risk of their coronavirus infection in the period 1-15 May 2020, for this purpose a questionnaire was adopted and administered to a sample of 558 citizens. Results: the results showed that 69.2% of the participants confirmed their respect always, and 38.7% confirmed that they rarely wear the mask, while 24% of the sample confirmed that they only sometimes wear the mask when they leave the house, including 50.5% of the sample confirmed that people infected with the coronavirus suffer from social stigmatization. It is found that 54.8% of the respondents had an average level of unrealistic optimism, where the mean of participants was (36, 17 ± 5, 97). The study also revealed that there is an association between the levels of unrealistic optimism and respect the home confinement (P = 0.001); whereas, the results showed that there is no association between the levels of unrealistic optimism and wearing the mask (P = 0.183). The study discovered there is significantly a negative association (B = -, 119, P = 0.005) between unrealistic optimism and the age of Algerian citizens during the home confinement of coronavirus. Otherwise, while the results did not show any statistically significant differences in unrealistic optimism between groups of gender among Algerian citizens during the home confinement of coronavirus (P = 0, 0835).Conclusions: In effect, unrealistic optimism is linked to avoiding risky behaviors that threaten human life as it is the case with the coronavirus. Therefore, it is important to reduce the levels of unrealistic optimism of individuals with beliefs and objective information to avoid dangerous behavior during and after the confinement period.

The role of optimism bias and public trust in the goverment on non-compliant behaviour with health protocols

“…In other words, the more people believe that they are not prone to the COVID-19, the higher the non-compliance is. This finding corresponds to the study by Boutebal et al (2020) in Algeria that the low unrealistic optimism bias would prompt someone to carry out preventive instructions to minimize the transmission. Another study by Kim and Niederdeppe (2013) regarding the unrealistic optimism bias also shows corresponding results that unrealistic optimistic people had significantly lower intentions to practice hand sanitation.…”

“…H1 in this study assumes that there is a relationship between unrealistic optimism bias and non-compliance behavior in society. This hypothesis is built upon the research of Boutebal et al (2020) discovering that a low level of unrealistic optimism bias encourages a person to be able to objectively assess the risk of the coronavirus and the urge to carry out countermeasure instructions that include belief in the effectiveness of staying at home and avoiding social interactions that may cause the spread of infection. The H1 test results show that the hypothesis is confirmed, in which the higher the level of unrealistic optimism bias of a person, the higher the level of public non-compliance in carrying out health protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic will be.…”

“…This study employed three instruments; unrealistic optimism bias questionnaire, public trust in the government questionnaire, and non-compliance behavior questionnaire. The unrealistic optimism bias questionnaire refers to the research conducted by Boutebal et al (2020) (14 items; a =.83; sample item "I believe I am completely immune from coronavirus"). The questionnaire entails five alternatives (1="strongly disagree", 5="strongly agree").…”

“…People maintain to create comparative judgment grounds when evaluating their risk in the face of negative events and believe that they are less susceptible to risk than others (Klein & Helweg-Larsen, 2002;Weinstein, 1987Weinstein, , 1989 Early research associated with unrealistic optimism bias found several different results. Boutebal et al (2020) suggest that the level of optimism bias and the respondent's age range had a negative and significant relationship. 2020) report that optimism bias may lead people to underestimate their chances of contracting a disease and ignore health warnings.…”

“…Early research on public non-compliance during pandemics has been associated with perceived risk and anxiety (Leung, 2003), experienced fear (Harper et al, 2020), unrealistic optimism bias (Boutebal et al, 2020), perceived susceptibility (Lau et al, 2008), knowledge regarding virus e-ISSN: 2541-450X p-ISSN: 0854-2880 Indigenous: Jurnal Ilmiah Psikologi 2021, 6(2), 14-24 transmission (Di Giuseppe et al, 2008), public trust in government (Wong & Jensen, 2020), and perceived effectiveness of countermeasures (Lau, 2003). Risky actions by the community during the pandemic and inconsistent government policies lead to public non-compliance to existing health protocols in order to diminish the spread of COVID-19 cases.…”