Unrealistic Optimism in the Eye of the Storm: Positive Bias Towards the Consequences of COVID-19 During the Second and Third Waves of the Pandemic
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Abstract
Research conducted at the outset of the pandemic shows that people are vulnerable to unrealistic optimism (UO). However, the Weinstein model suggests that this tendency may not persist as the pandemic progresses. Our research aimed at verifying whether UO persists during the second (Study 1) and the third wave (Study 2) of the pandemic in Poland, whether it concerns the assessment of the chances of COVID-19 infection (Study 1 and Study 2), the chances of severe course of the disease and adverse vaccine reactions (Study 2). We show that UO toward contracting COVID-19 persists throughout the pandemic. However, in situations where people have little influence on the occurrence of the event (chances of severe course of the disease and adverse vaccine reactions), the participants do not show UO. The exceptions are those who have personally known someone who has died from a coronavirus infection. These results are discussed in terms of self-esteem protection and the psychological threat reduction mechanism.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2022.05.10.22274918: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Paradoxically, research shows that unrealistically optimistic people less often follow the rules and respect limitations. In fact, they tend to ignore protective measures and thus contribute to the spread of the virus. A positive illusion can therefore be a knife that cuts both sides: from an individual’s perspective, the belief that preventive measures are readily available strengthens the illusion of control, but it actually leads to the …
SciScore for 10.1101/2022.05.10.22274918: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Paradoxically, research shows that unrealistically optimistic people less often follow the rules and respect limitations. In fact, they tend to ignore protective measures and thus contribute to the spread of the virus. A positive illusion can therefore be a knife that cuts both sides: from an individual’s perspective, the belief that preventive measures are readily available strengthens the illusion of control, but it actually leads to the ignoring of limitations, which not only does not reduce the risk but also seriously increases it. We did not expect to report the unrealistic optimism in regard to a severe course of COVID-19. The degree of desirability which refers to the severity of the consequences according to the Weinstein model (7) increases the pressure for a more realistic risk assessment. As the risk of a wrong and inadequate assessment of the situation increases, individuals pay higher costs for their wrong decisions. The results obtained are consistent with our assumptions that an individual will not be prone to unrealistic optimism when assessing a serious course of the disease. However, there is an interesting exception regarding people who knew someone who died from a COVID-19 infection. The results obtained in Study 2 show that people who experienced the death of a person they knew are unrealistically optimistic in regards to the assessment their own chances of a severe course of COVID-19. Knowing a person who died of COVID-19 may indicate the role of persona...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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