Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking

Jan Engelmann, Mael Lebreton, Peter Schwardmann, Joël van der Weele and Li-Ang Chang
Additional contact information
Joël van der Weele: University of Amsterdam
Li-Ang Chang: CREED - University of Amsterdam

No 19-042/I, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: It is widely hypothesized that anxiety and worry about an uncertain future lead to the adoption of comforting beliefs or "wishful thinking". However, there is little direct causal evidence for this effect. In our experiment, participants perform a visual pattern recognition task where some patterns may result in the delivery of an electric shock, a proven way of inducing anxiety. Participants engage in significant wishful thinking, as they are less likely to correctly identify patterns that they know may lead to a shock. Greater ambiguity of the pattern facilitates wishful thinking. Raising incentives for accuracy does not significantly decrease it.

Keywords: confidence; beliefs; anticipatory utility; anxiety; motivated cognition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-ene, nep-exp and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking (2024)
Working Paper: Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20190042

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