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Optimism Bias in Fans and Sports Reporters

Author

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  • Bradley C Love
  • Łukasz Kopeć
  • Olivia Guest

Abstract

People are optimistic about their prospects relative to others. However, existing studies can be difficult to interpret because outcomes are not zero-sum. For example, one person avoiding cancer does not necessitate that another person develops cancer. Ideally, optimism bias would be evaluated within a closed formal system to establish with certainty the extent of the bias and the associated environmental factors, such that optimism bias is demonstrated when a population is internally inconsistent. Accordingly, we asked NFL fans to predict how many games teams they liked and disliked would win in the 2015 season. Fans, like ESPN reporters assigned to cover a team, were overly optimistic about their team’s prospects. The opposite pattern was found for teams that fans disliked. Optimism may flourish because year-to-year team results are marked by auto-correlation and regression to the group mean (i.e., good teams stay good, but bad teams improve).

Suggested Citation

  • Bradley C Love & Łukasz Kopeć & Olivia Guest, 2015. "Optimism Bias in Fans and Sports Reporters," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-7, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0137685
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137685
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Puri, Manju & Robinson, David T., 2007. "Optimism and economic choice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 71-99, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Peng & Ghosh, Bikram & Liu, Yong, 2025. "Winning seats: Contingency selling in markets with limited capacity and diverse preferences," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 433-449.
    2. Tatjana Aue & Mihai Dricu & Dominik A. Moser & Boris Mayer & Stephanie Bührer, 2021. "Comparing personal and social optimism biases: magnitude, overlap, modifiability, and links with social identification and expertise," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-12, December.

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