ReviewConsciousness and cognition2017
What is unrealistic optimism?
Review in Consciousness and cognition, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Self-enhancement and physical health: A meta-analysis.The British journal of social psychology · 2023Pooled it
- Is Overconfidence a Risk Factor for Excessive Trading?Journal of gambling studies · 2026Article
- The belief in a decline in cooperation in the USA and China.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- How career adaptability affects university students' job search behavior and subjective well-being: the role of career choice optimistic bias.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Towards an expanded neurocognitive account of ketamine's rapid antidepressant effects.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Review
- "The Secret" to Success? The Psychology of Belief in Manifestation.Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2025Article
- Revisiting delusions to demystify human agency: A response to critics.Philosophy and the mind sciences · 2024Article
- Rational Optimism.Philosophia (Ramat-Gan, Israel) · 2024Article
- Classifying the Perception of Difficult Life Tasks: Machine Learning and/or Modeling of Logical Processes.Psychology in Russia : state of the art · 2024Article
- Article
- Coping with Coronavirus Pandemic: Risk Perception Predicts Life Optimism.Journal of happiness studies · 2023Article
- Psychoanalytic contributions in distinguishing willful ignorance and rational knowledge avoidance.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Saving Regret and Procrastination.Journal Of Economic Psychology · 2023Article
- Optimism and Longevity Among Japanese Older Adults.Journal of happiness studies · 2022Article
- Conspiracy claims and secret intentions as predictors of psychological coping and vaccine uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of psychiatric research · 2022Article
- The Mediating Role of Dispositional Optimism in the Relationship between Health Locus of Control and Self-Efficacy in Pregnant Women at Risk of Preterm Delivery.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Media intervention program for reducing unrealistic optimism bias: The link between unrealistic optimism, well-being, and health.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2022Article
- Article
- The Effect of Induced Optimism on Situational Pain Catastrophizing.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Do delusions have and give meaning?Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Here we consider the nature of unrealistic optimism and other related positive illusions. We are interested in whether cognitive states that are unrealistically optimistic are belief states, whether they are false, and whether they are epistemically irrational. We also ask to what extent unrealistically optimistic cognitive states are fixed. Based on the classic and recent empirical literature on unrealistic optimism, we offer some preliminary answers to these questions, thereby laying the foundations for answering further questions about unrealistic optimism, such as whether it has biological, psychological, or epistemic benefits.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.