UNREALISTIC OPTIMISM AND POSITIVE-NEGATIVE ASYMMETRY - A CONCEPTUAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL-STUDY OF INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN OPTIMISM, PESSIMISM, AND REALISM

Using a variant of Weinstein's (1980) technique for the measurement of unrealistic optimism, subjects were classified as optimistic, realist ic, or pessimistic about their chances of being confronted in the futu re with problems such as divorce, nervous breakdown, etc. On the basis of previous theory and research on cognition and affect, it was hypot hesized that, across problems, subjects would alternate optimism with realism rather than with pessimism. Cross-cultural data obtained from 19 samples of Belgian, Moroccan, and Polish subjects not only confirme d the hypothesis but also showed high agreement about the nature of th e problems that were selectively associated with optimism, realism and pessimism.