1. Increased/Maintained UO
Shifts in Unrealistic Optimism and Affect Regulation Karen Vanderzanden, Bradlee W. Gamblin, Kelly Jones, Joelle Ruthig, & Andre Kehn University of North Dakota
Introduction
Method
Discussion
Individuals generally display a bias towards personally favorable outcomes, underestimating their likelihood of experiencing future negative events, but overestimating their likelihood of experiencing positive events (Weinstein, 1980).
Absolute unrealistic optimism is a "favorable difference between the risk estimate a person makes for him- or herself and the risk estimate suggested by a relevant, objective standard..." (Shepperd et al., 2013, p. 396).
In an achievement context, college students who were asked to estimate their exam score were:
Unrealistically optimistic in their estimates a month prior to the exam.
Relatively accurate in their estimates immediately after completing the exam.
Research has shown that individuals may diminish their unrealistic optimism in order to regulate affect (Shepperd et al., 1996).
Feeling anxious about one’s performance may prompt individuals to reassess and adjust their expectations for success (Sweeney et al., 2006).
Shifts in expectations to regulate anxiety may also contribute to managing emotional reactions to potentially receiving bad news by lowering one’s expectations in preparation for experiencing future negative emotions (Shepperd, et al., 2005; Sweeny et al., 2006).
Participants:
166 undergraduate students in an undergraduate Psychology course (Mage = 19.52; 73.5% women).
Procedure:
Participants estimated their exam performance one month prior to the exam (T1) and immediately before the exam (T2).
Participants reported their level of anxiety at both T1 and T2.
Upon receiving their exam score, participants indicated their emotional responses to the performance feedback.
At the end of the semester, the course instructor provided the researchers with each student's actual exam score (%) for the exam.
Measures:
Exam Performance Estimates: "My grade on the exam in this course will be ___%.”
Unrealistic Optimism: Student’s actual exam score subtracted from his/her estimated exam score. Positive values indicated unrealistic optimism, negative values indicated pessimism, and a value of 0 indicated realism.
Anxiety: "How anxious are you feeling at this moment about your score on the exam in this course?"
Response range: 1 (not anxious) to 9 (very anxious)
Discrete Emotions: “Rate to what extent you feel each of the following emotions:
Relieved Frustrated
Disappointed Guilty
Satisfied Happy
Proud
Response range: 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely).”
In support of our hypothesis and consistent with prior research (Shepperd et al.,1996; Shepperd et al., 2005), the more anxious participants felt, the less unrealistically optimistic their performance estimates were.
Mean anxiety significantly increased from T1 to T2. This spike in anxiety corresponded to the significant drop in unrealistic optimism regarding exam performance estimates from T1 to T2.
Thus, feeling anxious about one’s performance may lead individuals to reassess and adjust their expectations for success.
Our results support the hypothesis that those who diminished in unrealistic optimism would experience more positive and fewer negative emotions after receiving exam feedback than those who increased or maintained their levels of unrealistic optimism.
Overall, the findings support the notion that lowering performance expectations contributes to affect regulation.
Future research should investigate the causal direction between shifts in unrealistic optimism and reported level of anxiety.
Future research should also examine a wider variety of discrete emotions to examine potential differences in those who increase/maintain unrealistic optimism and those who decrease in unrealistic optimism.
Results
Unrealistic Optimism:
Students overestimated their exam score by 13.5% at T1 and 9.5% at T2.
Actual class average on the exam = 74%
Anxiety:
Performance estimates were negatively correlated
with anxiety level at T1 (r = -.25, p = .001) and
T2 (r = -.204, p = .007).
Average reported anxiety significantly increased from T1 (M = 4.74) to T2 (M = 6.13), t(164) = 8.35,
p < .001.
This spike in anxiety corresponded to the
significant drop in unrealistic optimism regarding performance estimates from T1 (M = 87.5%) to
T2 (M = 83.5%), t(165) = -9.10, p < .001.
The Current Study
References
Examined shifts in unrealistically optimistic exam performance estimates as a function of proximity to an exam.
Assessed levels of anxiety prior to the exam in order to examine how differences in anxiety are associated with shifts in unrealistic optimism.
Assessed the degree to which students who increased/maintained unrealistic optimism experienced various emotions after receiving performance feedback compared to students who decreased in unrealistic optimism.
Hypotheses:
Increased anxiety from Time 1 (one month before the exam) to Time 2 (immediately before the exam) would be related to downward shifts in unrealistic optimism, based on the premise that shifts in unrealistic optimism are related to self-regulation of emotion.
Those who diminished in unrealistic optimism would experience more positive and fewer negative emotions in response to performance feedback than those who increased or maintained their levels of unrealistic optimism.
Shepperd, J. A., Grace, J., Cole, L. J., & Klein, C. (2005). Anxiety and outcome predictions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31,
Shepperd, J. A., Klein, W. M. P., Waters, E. A., & Weinstein, N. D. (2013). Taking stock of unrealistic optimism. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8,
Shepperd, J. A., Ouellette, J. A., & Fernandez, J. K. (1996). Abandoning unrealistic optimism: Performance estimates and the temporal proximity of self-relevant feedback. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70,
Sweeny, K., Carroll, P. J., & Shepperd, J. A. (2006). Is optimism always best? Future outlooks at preparedness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15,
Weinstein, N. D. (1980). Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39,
Table 1.
Differences in Affect Following Exam Feedback, between those who Decreased in Mean Unrealistic Optimism from T1 to T2 and those who Increased/Maintained Unrealistic Optimism (UO)
Discrete Emotions:
An ANOVA comparing those who increased or
maintained their levels of unrealistic optimism (n = 100, 64.10%) to those who decreased in unrealistic optimism (n = 56, 35.90%) was computed on emotional responses to exam feedback.
Diminished unrealistic optimism resulted in significantly less guilt, and more relief, satisfaction, happiness, and pride compared to maintained or increased unrealistic optimism (see Table 1).
Emotion
Increased/Maintained UO
M (SD)
Decreased UO F
Significance
Relieved
2.26 (1.25)
2.84 (1.36)
7.22
.008**
Satisfied
2.26 (1.29)
2.93 (1.41)
8.99
.003**
Happy
2.37 (1.30)
3.05 (1.30)
9.63
.002**
Proud
2.14 (1.24)
2.74 (1.31)
7.79
.006**
Disappointed
3.43 (1.37)
2.98 (1.50)
3.58
.060
Guilty
2.57 (1.32)
2.07 (1.14)
5.52
.020*
Frustrated
2.98 (1.38)
2.67 (1.38)
1.74
.189
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Note: The authors would like to thank the Graduate School of the University of North Dakota and the Research Development & Compliance Office of the University of North Dakota for providing funding for this project.