Pessimistic bias in comparative evaluations: A case of perceived vulnerability to the effects of negative life events

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Volumn 27, Issue 12, 2001, Pages 1627-1636

  Blanton, Hart ^a   Axsom, Danny ^b   McClive, Kimberly P ^a   Price, Simani ^b  

^a STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

^b State University of New York ^*

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035648898     PISSN: 01461672     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/01461672012712006     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Blanton, H., Buunk, B. P., Gibbons, F. X., & Kuyper, H. (1999). When better-than-others compare upward: Choice of comparison and comparative evaluation as independent predictors of academic performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 420-430.
2. Boney-McCoy, S., Gibbons, F. X., & Gerrard, M. (1999). Self-esteem, compensatory self-enhancement, and the consideration of health risk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(8), 954-965.
3. Crosby, F., Pufall, A., Snyder, R. C., O'Connell, M., & Whalen, P. (1989). The denial of personal disadvantage among you, me and all the other ostriches. In M. Crawford & M. Gentry (Eds.), Gender and thought (pp. 79-99). New York: Springer-Verlag.
4. Deane, G.D. (2000). "Check all that apply. . . ": A simple method for correcting observational dependence in multiple response data (Working Paper 2000-4). Albany, NY: Center for Social and Demographic Analysis, State University of New York at Albany.
5. Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (1997). Social comparisons and subjective well-being. In B. P. Buunk & F. X. Gibbons (Eds.), Health, coping, and well-being: Perspectives from social comparison theory (pp. 329-358). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6. Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
7. Gerrard, M., Gibbons, F. X., & Warner, T. D. (1991). Effects of reviewing risk-relevant behavior on perceived vulnerability among women marines. Health Psychology, 10(3), 173-179.
8. Gerrard, M., & Warner, T. D. (1994). Comparison of Marine and college women's HIV/AIDS-relevant sexual behaviors. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24(11), 959-980.
9. Gibbons, F. X., Eggleston, T. J., & Benthin, A. C. (1997). Cognitive reactions to smoking relapse: The reciprocal relation between dissonance and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(1), 184-195.
10. Hoorens, V. (1995). Self-favoring biases, self-presentation, and the self-other asymmetry in social comparison. Journal of Personality, 65(4), 793-817.
11. Jaccard, J., & Wan, C. K. (1993). Statistical analysis of temporal data with many observations: Issues for behavioral medicine data. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 15, 41-50.
12. Klar, Y., & Giladi, E. E. (1997). No one in my group can be below the group's average: A robust positivity bias in favor of anonymous peers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(5), 885-901.
13. Klar, Y., & Giladi, E. E. (1999). Are most people happier than their peers, or are they just happy? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(5), 585-594.
14. Klein, W. M. (1997). Objective standards are not enough: Affective self-evaluative, and behavioral responses to social comparison information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(4), 763-774.
15. Klein, W. M., & Weinstein, N. D. (1997). Social comparison and unrealistic optimism about personal risk. In B. P. Buunk & F. X Gibbons (Eds.), Health, coping, and well-being: Perspectives from social comparison theory (pp. 25-61). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16. Kruger, J. (1999). Lake Woebegone be gone! The "below-average effect" and the egocentric nature of comparative ability judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(2), 221-232.
17. Little, R. J., & Schenker, N. (1995). Missing data. In G. Arminger, C. Clogg, & M. Sobel (Eds.), Handbook of statistical modeling for the social and behavioral sciences. New York: Plenum.
18. Sayrs, L. W. (1989). Pooled time series analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
19. Smith, G. E., Gerrard, M., & Gibbons, F. X. (1997). Self-esteem and the relation between risk behavior and perceptions of vulnerability to unplanned pregnancy in college women. Health-Psychology, 16(2), 137-146.
20. Taylor, S. E. (1989). Positive illusions. New York: Basic Books.
21. Taylor, S. E. (1998). The social being in social psychology. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, 4th ed., pp. 58-95). New York: McGraw-Hill.
22. Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
23. Weinstein, N. D. (1980). Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 806-820.
24. Weinstein, N. D., & Klein, W. M. (1995). Resistance of personal risk perceptions to debiasing interventions. Health Psychology, 14(2), 132-140.
25. Weinstein, N. D., & Lachendro, E. (1982). Egocentrism as a source of unrealistic: optimism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 195-200.
26. Wood, J. V. (1996). What is social comparison and how should we study it? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 520-537.
27. Wood, J. V., Taylor, S. E., & Lichtman, R. R. (1985). Social comparison in adjustment to breast cancer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1169-1183.
28. Wood, J. V., & VanderZee, K. (1997). Social comparisons among cancer patients: Under what conditions are comparisons upward and downward? In B. P. Buunk & F. X. Gibbons (Eds.), Health, coping, and well-being: Perspectives from social comparison theory (pp. 299-328). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.