ERIC Number: EJ993746
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Nov
Pages: 5
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0096-3445
EISSN: N/A
Is Optimism Real?
Simmons, Joseph P.; Massey, Cade
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, v141 n4 p630-634 Nov 2012
Is optimism real, or are optimistic forecasts just cheap talk? To help answer this question, we investigated whether optimistic predictions persist in the face of large incentives to be accurate. We asked National Football League football fans to predict the winner of a single game. Roughly half (the partisans) predicted a game involving their favorite team, and the other half (the neutrals) predicted a game involving 2 teams they were neutral about. Participants were promised either a small incentive ($5) or a large incentive ($50) for correctly predicting the game's winner. Optimism emerged even when incentives were large, as partisans were much more likely than neutrals to predict partisans' favorite teams to win. Strong optimism also emerged among participants whose responses to follow-up questions strongly suggested that they believed the predictions they made. This research supports the claim that optimism is real. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables and 3 footnotes.)
Descriptors: Team Sports, Athletics, Experimental Psychology, Psychological Patterns, Prediction, Incentives, Motivation, Probability
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A