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Korean Journal of Psychology: General

ISSN : 1229-067X

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Vol.30 No.3

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Unrealistic Optimism about Risky Events: Direct versus Indirect Measures and Event Frequency Effect

Korean Journal of Psychology: General / Korean Journal of Psychology: General, (P)1229-067X; (E)2734-1127
2011, v.30 no.3, pp.647-662

(2011). Unrealistic Optimism about Risky Events: Direct versus Indirect Measures and Event Frequency Effect. Korean Journal of Psychology: General, 30(3), 647-662.

Abstract

People tend to believe that they are less likely than the average person to experience negative events. Such unrealistic optimism has been assessed in two ways, direct and indirect measures. Using various risky events, the present studies compared unrealistic optimism in these two methods. Study 1 investigated whether there is difference between these two methods in the magnitude of unrealistic optimism, and in the correlation between unrealistic optimism and major event characteristics-perceived frequency, controllability, severity, availability. The two measures showed significant difference not only in magnitude of unrealistic optimism but also in the correlation between unrealistic optimism and risk characteristics. Studey 2 tested empirically whether event frequency influenced differently in unrealistic optimism of direct and indirect method. The direct method produced stronger unrealistic optimism when an event absolute frequency is low rather than high, which supported the existing egocentrism account. In the indirect method, however, an opposite effect was found, namely, unrealistic optimism was significantly stronger when an event absolute frequency is high rather than low, which showed novel results. The effects of event frequency in direct and indirect method were discussed.

keywords
비현실적 낙관주의, 직접 대 간접 측정방법, 사건 빈도 효과, 자기중심성, 위험사건, Unrealistic optimism, direct vs. indirect measures, event frequency effect, egocentrism, risky events

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