Anticipatory and post hoc cushioning strategies: Optimism and defensive pessimism in “risky” situations

The concept of cognitive strategies is proposed as a model for the process by which individuals cushion themselves against threats to self-esteem in “risky” situations. Two strategies are discussed. The first is defensive pessimism, an anticipatory strategy that involves setting defensively low expectations prior to entering a situation, so as to defend against loss of self-esteem in the event of failure. The second is an optimistic strategy, where expectations are high at the outset, and post hoc restructuring of the situation is done when the outcome is known. Expectations about performance on an anagram task were collected from prescreened optimistics and defensive pessimists. After completion of the task, subjects were given false failure or success feedback. A posttest measuring self-reported satisfaction, feelings of control, and performance evaluations was administered. As predicted, subjects selected for defensive pessimist attitudes expected to perform significantly worse than did those selected for optimistic attitudes, even though there was no difference in actual performance. Moreover, optimists demonstrated attributional egotism in claiming significantly more control over their performance in the success condition than in the failure condition. Pessimists did not show this pattern. The data provide evidence of post hoc cushioning efforts among optimists, whereas defensive pessimists seem to be cushioned by their initial structuring of the situation. It is argued that these strategies can be understood as motivated attempts to solve the “problem” of a “risky” situation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44330/1/10608_2005_Article_BF01173471.pd

Strategic Realities: Optimism and Defense Pessimism.

This dissertation focuses on the processes by which individuals negotiate the transition from high school to college by deploying their knowledge of themselves and their social world to control anxiety and motivate performance. Cognitive strategies are used as units of personality to capture coherent patterns of thoughts, feelings, action and reaction that characterize individual differences in the adaptation to novel situations over time. Of particular interest are the strategies of optimism and defensive pessimism. Defensive pessimism involves setting unrealistically low expectations prior to entering a situation, "playing through" or planning for negative contingencies in order to control anxiety, and expending considerable effort on performance. In contrast, the optimistic strategy begins with positive expectations, and involves "post hoc" attributions that are designed to protect or enhance self-esteem after performance. Questionnaires, an experience-sampling study, in-depth interviews, and a telephone survey on health outcomes were used over a three year period to study use of these strategies among Honors College students at the University of Michigan. Data from these various sources converge strongly with previous experimental data to indicate that academic defensive pessimism is a domain specific strategy (that does not necessarily indicate an overall pessimistic outlook), that can serve to facilitate academic success. Subjects using the strategy have significantly different self-conceptions and use their knowledge of situations significantly differently than optimistic subjects; the latter group tends to be debilitated by confronting negative information and shows less flexible problem-solving than the pessimists. Over time, however, defensive pessimist subjects pay a high cost for their "stress-engendering" strategy: by their third year in college they are more stressed and perform more poorly than the optimists.Ph.D.Personality psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161699/1/8801384.pd

On Moderator Detection in Anchoring Research: Implications of Ignoring Estimate Direction

Anchoring, whereby judgments assimilate to previously considered standards, is one of the most reliable effects in psychology. In the last decade, researchers have become increasingly interested in identifying moderators of anchoring effects. We argue that a drawback of traditional moderator analyses in the standard anchoring paradigm is that they ignore estimate direction—whether participants’ estimates are higher or lower than the anchor value. We suggest that failing to consider estimate direction can sometimes obscure moderation in anchoring tasks, and discuss three potential analytic solutions that take estimate direction into account. Understanding moderators of anchoring effects is essential for a basic understanding of anchoring and for applied research on reducing the influence of anchoring in real-world judgments. Considering estimate direction reduces the risk of failing to detect moderation