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risk
You assume you are less likely than others to experience misfortune.
The optimism bias is your tendency to believe that your future will be more positive than the evidence supports.
In a 1980 survey, Neil Weinstein found that most people rated their own chances of experiencing positive life events as higher than average, and their chances of negative events as lower. You treat yourself as a statistical outlier, regardless of reality. You subconsciously believe you are exempt from the risks others face.
You are the protagonist of your life, which makes disaster feel like someone else's problem.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Neil Weinstein, 1980, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- What the check found
- The citation and the finding are accurate to the 1980 study, though the term 'optimism bias' is a modern consolidation of the 'unrealistic optimism' identified in the paper.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.