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Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking

Author

Listed:
  • Engelmann, Jan
  • LeBreton, Maël
  • Salem-Garcia, Nahuel
  • Schwardmann, Peter
  • van der Weele, Joël

Abstract

We test the hypothesis that anxiety about adverse future outcomes leads to wishful thinking. Across four experiments (N=1,116), participants perform pattern recognition tasks in which some patterns may result in an electric shock or a monetary loss. Participants engage in significant wishful thinking, as they are less likely to correctly identify patterns that may lead to a shock or loss. Wishful thinking increases with greater ambiguity of the visual evidence and is only disciplined by higher accuracy incentives when accuracy depends on participants' cognitive effort. Wishful thinking is heterogeneous across and stable within individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Engelmann, Jan & LeBreton, Maël & Salem-Garcia, Nahuel & Schwardmann, Peter & van der Weele, Joël, 2022. "Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking," CEPR Discussion Papers 17665, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17665
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    2. Grunewald, Andreas & Klockmann, Victor & von Schenk, Alicia & von Siemens, Ferdinand, 2024. "Are biases contagious? The influence of communication on motivated beliefs," W.E.P. - Würzburg Economic Papers 109, University of Würzburg, Department of Economics.
    3. Islam, Marco, 2021. "Motivated Risk Assessments," Working Papers 2021:12, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 26 Jul 2022.
    4. Felix Chopra & Ingar K. Haaland & Christopher Roth, 2019. "Do People Value More Informative News?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8026, CESifo.
    5. Luc Bridet & Peter Schwardmann, 2020. "Selling Dreams: Endogenous Optimism in Lending Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 8271, CESifo.
    6. Schünemann, Johannes & Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2023. "Anticipation of deteriorating health and information avoidance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Dickinson, David L., 2024. "Deliberation, mood response, and the confirmation bias in the religious belief domain," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Dessí, Roberta & Ren, Junjie & Zhao, Xiaojian, 2023. "Shame, Guilt, and Motivated Self-Confidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 18629, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Victor Augias & Daniel M. A. Barreto, 2020. "Persuading a Wishful Thinker," Papers 2011.13846, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    10. Charlotte Cordes & Jana Friedrichsen & Simeon Schudy, 2025. "Motivated Beliefs Under Delayed Uncertainty Resolution," CESifo Working Paper Series 12286, CESifo.
    11. Pace, Davide D. & Imai, Taisuke & Schwardmann, Peter & van der Weele, Joël J., 2025. "Uncertainty about carbon impact and the willingness to avoid CO2 emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    12. Le Yaouanq, Yves, 2023. "A model of voting with motivated beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 394-408.
    13. Prati, Alberto & Saucet, Charlotte, 2024. "The causal effect of a health treatment on beliefs, stated preferences and memories," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    14. Karlan, Dean & Lowe, Matt & Osei, Robert & Osei-Akoto, Isaac & Roth, Benjamin N. & Udry, Christopher, 2022. "Social Protection and Social Distancing During the Pandemic: Mobile Money Transfers in Ghana," CEPR Discussion Papers 17510, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Bolte, Lukas & Fan, Tony Q., 2024. "Motivated mislearning: The case of correlation neglect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 647-663.
    16. Thomas Neuber, 2021. "Egocentric Norm Adoption," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2021_323, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    17. Alexander Coutts & Leonie Gerhards & Zahra Murad, 2024. "What to Blame? Self-Serving Attribution Bias with Multi-Dimensional Uncertainty," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(661), pages 1835-1874.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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