Imperfect Cognitions

This post is by Vera Hoorens (Leuven University) who recently wrote a paper entitled, "The Hubris Hypothesis: The Downside of Comparative Optimism Displays" , together with Carolien Van Damme , Marie Helweg-Larsen , and Constantine Sedikides . The paper is to appear in a special issue of Consciousness and Cognition on unrealistic optimism , guest edited by Anneli Jefferson, Lisa Bortolotti, and Bojana Kuzmanovic. Vera Optimism has many positive consequences. This makes one expect that people encourage and admire other individuals’ optimism. We speculated, however, that the extent to which they do so depends on how these individuals display their optimism. They may express absolute optimism, saying that their future will be good, or comparative optimism, saying that their future will be better than other people’s futures. Based on the hubris hypothesis, we predicted that this distinction would determine how observers respond. The hubris hypothesis states that obs...