UNIQUE INVULNERABILITY - A CLASSROOM DEMONSTRATION IN ESTIMATING PERSONAL MORTALITY

People believe that ''Bad things will not happen to me,'' thereby disp laying a sense of unique invulnerability. To vivify the role of such i llusions, students in a graduate course covering self-illusions receiv ed information based on actuarial tables about the average age of dyin g and then reported their estimated ages of death. In Class 1, student s overestimated their age of death by 9 years. In Class 2, in which st udents were expressly told that the demonstration would show their sen se of unique invulnerability, they again overestimated their age of de ath by 9 years. Closing comments explore the tenacity of unique invuln erability.