Cultural variation in unrealistic optimism: Does the West feel more vulnerable than the East?

Abstract

Levels of unrealistic optimism were compared for Canadians (a culture typical of an independent construal of self) and Japanese (a culture typical of an interdependent construal of self). Across 2 studies, Canadians showed significantly more unrealistic optimism than Japanese, and Canadians' optimism bias was more strongly related to perceived threat. Study 2 revealed that Japanese were even less unrealistically optimistic for events that were particularly threatening to interdependent selves. The authors suggest that self-enhancing biases (such as unrealistic optimism) are, for the most part, absent from the motivational repertoire of the Japanese because the consequent attention to the individual that self-enhancement engenders is not valued in interdependent cultures