Don Moore
Associate Professor
Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow
UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business

Monday, December 9, 2013
11:00-12:30 SB 112

Optimistic About Optimism: The Belief That Optimism Improves Performance

A series of experiments investigated why people believe it is a good idea to be optimistic and whether they are right to do so. Specifically, we tested whether people believe that optimism improves performance. Participants prescribed optimism for someone implementing decisions but not for someone deliberating, indicating that people prescribe optimism selectively, when it can affect performance. Furthermore, participants believed optimism improved outcomes when a person’s actions had considerable, rather than little, influence over the outcome. A series of experiments tested the accuracy of this belief. We find that optimism did not improve performance as much as participants expected. In sum, people prescribe optimism when they believe it has the opportunity to improve the chance of success—unfortunately, people may be overly optimistic about how much optimism can do.