Bracing for the worst: Severity, testing, and feedback timing as moderators of the optimistic bias

People are remarkably optimistic in their personal predictions. However; people occasionally will be pessimistic, bracing themselves for negative feedback if they anticipate that their optimistic outlook might be challenged. The authors examined the effects of event severity, testing and feedback timing on personal predictions. Participants believed they would or would not be tested for a medical condition with or without severe consequences. At the beginning of the experiment, participants who anticipated being tested believed they would receive their test results in 3 to 4 weeks. At the end of the experiment these participants learned that they would receive their test results in a few moments. As predicted, participants who were tested were most pessimistic when anticipating immediate feedback for a deficiency with severe consequences. Further analyses revealed that participants' personal predictions were related to their affect.