IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v124y2014i2p229-244.html

The bias in the bias: Comparative optimism as a function of event social undesirability

Author

Listed:
  • Sweldens, Steven
  • Puntoni, Stefano
  • Paolacci, Gabriele
  • Vissers, Maarten

Abstract

We present a new event-level predictor of comparative optimism: comparative optimism is larger for more socially undesirable events. A meta-analysis shows that event social undesirability predicts comparative optimism effect sizes reported in the literature, over and above the effects of other known predictors. Four experiments corroborate this finding and demonstrate the key role played by respondents’ impression management motives. The effect of social undesirability decreases with stronger than usual anonymity assurances, increases with greater impression management tendencies, and reverses when people want to make a negative impression. Because social undesirability is correlated to other known predictors of comparative optimism (e.g., controllability, severity), it is important to take its effects into account when assessing the effect of other event characteristics. The current research adds to, and bridges, the literatures on event-level predictors and impression management in comparative optimism.

Suggested Citation

  • Sweldens, Steven & Puntoni, Stefano & Paolacci, Gabriele & Vissers, Maarten, 2014. "The bias in the bias: Comparative optimism as a function of event social undesirability," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 229-244.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:124:y:2014:i:2:p:229-244
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.03.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597814000272
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.03.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen V. Burks & Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Lorenz Goette & Aldo Rustichini, 2013. "Overconfidence and Social Signalling," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 949-983.
    2. Paolacci, Gabriele & Chandler, Jesse & Ipeirotis, Panagiotis G., 2010. "Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(5), pages 411-419, August.
    3. Shoss, Mindy K. & Strube, Michael J, 2011. "How do you fake a personality test? An investigation of cognitive models of impression-managed responding," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 163-171, September.
    4. Bing, Mark N. & Kluemper, Don & Kristl Davison, H. & Taylor, Shannon & Novicevic, Milorad, 2011. "Overclaiming as a measure of faking," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 148-162, September.
    5. Dominic D. P. Johnson & James H. Fowler, 2011. "The evolution of overconfidence," Nature, Nature, vol. 477(7364), pages 317-320, September.
    6. Kurtzberg, Terri R. & Naquin, Charles E. & Belkin, Liuba Y., 2005. "Electronic performance appraisals: The effects of e-mail communication on peer ratings in actual and simulated environments," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 216-226, November.
    7. Gabriele Paolacci & Jesse Chandler & Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis, 2010. "Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 5(5), pages 411-419, August.
    8. Dahl, Darren W & Manchanda, Rajesh V & Argo, Jennifer J, 2001. "Embarrassment in Consumer Purchase: The Roles of Social Presence and Purchase Familiarity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(3), pages 473-481, December.
    9. Fisher, Robert J, 1993. "Social Desirability Bias and the Validity of Indirect Questioning," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(2), pages 303-315, September.
    10. Leslie K. John & Alessandro Acquisti & George Loewenstein, 2011. "Strangers on a Plane: Context-Dependent Willingness to Divulge Sensitive Information," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(5), pages 858-873.
    11. Raghubir, Priya & Menon, Geeta, 1998. "AIDS and Me, Never the Twain Shall Meet: The Effects of Information Accessibility on Judgments of Risk and Advertising Effectiveness," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(1), pages 52-63, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Lianshan & Liu, Piper Liping & Lam, Chervin & Huang, Zhongwei, 2024. "Well-informed or misinformed? News-Finds-Me perception in shaping sexual and reproductive health knowledge and behavioral intentions among Chinese women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 359(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bhatt, Vipul & Smith, Angela M., 2025. "Overconfidence and performance: Evidence from a simple real-effort task," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    2. Esmark, Carol L. & Noble, Stephanie M. & Breazeale, Michael J., 2017. "I’ll Be Watching You: Shoppers’ Reactions to Perceptions of Being Watched by Employees," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 336-349.
    3. Long, Chris P., 2018. "To control and build trust: How managers use organizational controls and trust-building activities to motivate subordinate cooperation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 69-91.
    4. Katherine B. Coffman & Lucas C. Coffman & Keith M. Marzilli Ericson, 2017. "The Size of the LGBT Population and the Magnitude of Antigay Sentiment Are Substantially Underestimated," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3168-3186, October.
    5. Ina Garnefeld & Andreas Eggert & Markus Husemann-Kopetzky & Eva Böhm, 2019. "Exploring the link between payment schemes and customer fraud: a mental accounting perspective," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 595-616, July.
    6. Yamada, Katsunori & Sato, Masayuki, 2013. "Another avenue for anatomy of income comparisons: Evidence from hypothetical choice experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 35-57.
    7. S. Venus Jin & Aziz Muqaddam, 2019. "Product placement 2.0: “Do Brands Need Influencers, or Do Influencers Need Brands?”," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(5), pages 522-537, September.
    8. Hsu, Dan K. & Burmeister-Lamp, Katrin & Simmons, Sharon A. & Foo, Maw-Der & Hong, Michelle C. & Pipes, Jesse D., 2019. "“I know I can, but I don't fit”: Perceived fit, self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 311-326.
    9. Lutz, Christoph & Newlands, Gemma, 2018. "Consumer segmentation within the sharing economy: The case of Airbnb," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 187-196.
    10. Mariconda, Simone & Lurati, Francesco, 2015. "Does familiarity breed stability? The role of familiarity in moderating the effects of new information on reputation judgments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 957-964.
    11. Gandullia, Luca & Lezzi, Emanuela, 2018. "The price elasticity of charitable giving: New experimental evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 88-91.
    12. Tobias Schlager & Ashley V. Whillans, 2022. "People underestimate the probability of contracting the coronavirus from friends," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    13. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Kuhn, Michael A., 2013. "Experimental methods: Extra-laboratory experiments-extending the reach of experimental economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 93-100.
    14. Gerhard, Patrick & Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Post, Thomas, 2017. "Past performance framing and investors’ belief updating: Is seeing long-term returns always associated with smaller belief updates?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 38-51.
    15. Orazi, Davide C. & Pizzetti, Marta, 2015. "Revisiting fear appeals: A structural re-inquiry of the protection motivation model," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 223-225.
    16. Haas, Nicholas & Hassan, Mazen & Mansour, Sarah & Morton, Rebecca B., 2021. "Polarizing information and support for reform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 883-901.
    17. Cantarella, Michele & Strozzi, Chiara, 2019. "Workers in the Crowd: The Labour Market Impact of the Online Platform Economy," IZA Discussion Papers 12327, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Armenak Antinyan & Luca Corazzini & Filippo Pavesi, 2018. "What Matters for Whistleblowing on Tax Evaders? Survey and Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 07/2018, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    19. Hindsley, Paul & McEvoy, David M. & Morgan, O. Ashton, 2020. "Consumer Demand for Ethical Products and the Role of Cultural Worldviews: The Case of Direct-Trade Coffee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    20. Gökçe Esenduran & James A. Hill & In Joon Noh, 2020. "Understanding the Choice of Online Resale Channel for Used Electronics," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(5), pages 1188-1211, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:124:y:2014:i:2:p:229-244. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.