Cultural variations in optimistic and pessimistic bias: Do easterners really expect the worst and westerners really expect the best when predicting future life events?

The authors compared levels of optimistic and pessimistic bias in the predi ction of positive and negative life events between European Americans and J apanese, Study I showed that European Americans compared with Japanese were more likely to predict positive events to occur to self than to others. Th e opposite pattern emerged in the prediction of negative events. Study 2 re plicated these cultural differences. Furthermore, positive associations eme rged between predictions and occurrence of life events 2 months later for b oth European Americans and Japanese, Across both studies, results of within -groups analyses indicated that both groups expected negative events to be more likely to occur to others than to self (optimistic bias). In addition, Japanese expected positive events to be more likely to occur to others tha n to self (pessimistic bias). However, European Americans failed to show th e expected optimistic bias for positive events.