Topic summary
Unrealistic optimism
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Optimism bias.
Valence effects
The valence effect refers to the influence of positive or negative framing on unrealistic optimism. Since 2003, Ron S. Gold and colleagues have studied this phenomenon by presenting the same event in different ways. For example, some participants receive information about conditions that promote a health-related event, such as developing heart disease, and are asked to rate the likelihood of experiencing it. Others receive matched information about conditions that prevent the same event and are asked to rate the likelihood of avoiding it. Their findings consistently show that unrealistic optimism is greater when events are framed with negative valence than with positive valence.