How Did We Forge a Bearable Reality in COVID-19? Biases in Social Comparative Judgments in a Time of Pervasive Threat

Abstract

AbstractIn this chapter we present a very special form of social illusions: unrealistic pessimism (the expectation that negative events will happen to us in comparison to others who will be less affected by negative events like earthquakes or radioactive pollution). On that basis, we were interested in which illusions, which are associated with appearing in the moment of crisis, will appear during the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic: that is, unrealistic optimism or pessimism (I perceive myself as less or more threatened than others) and the better-than-average effect.It turned out that unrealistic optimism was present from the very beginning and did not disappear even when our respondents were delivered clear data (e.g., number of casualties, the rapid growth of cases) showing that all societies around the world were in great danger.In this chapter we also present global studies showing how widespread this phenomenon is.Interestingly, in our studies the better-than-average effect was also present in many countries: respondents perceived themselves as more involved in actions preventing COVID-19 infection whilst others were less involved.