During a global crisis, does the desire for good news also mean an endorsement of an optimistic bias? Five pre-registered studies, conducted at the start of the COVID pandemic, examined people's lay prescriptions for thinking about uncertainty—specifically whether they thought forecasters should be optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic in how they estimated key likelihoods. Participants gave prescriptions for forecasters with different roles (e.g., self, family member, and public official) and for several key outcomes (e.g., contracting COVID and vaccine development). Overall, prescribed optimism was not the norm. In fact, for negative outcomes that were of high concern, participants generally wanted others to have a pessimistic bias in how they estimated likelihoods. For positive outcomes, people favored more accurate estimation. These patterns held regardless of the assumed forecaster's role. A common justification for advocating for a pessimistic bias in forecasts was to increase others' engagement in protective or preventative behaviors.

中文翻译：

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在一场新的全球危机中，人们是否希望他人保持乐观？

在全球危机期间，对好消息的渴望是否也意味着对乐观偏见的认可？在新冠病毒大流行开始时进行的五项预先注册的研究检查了人们对不确定性的思考的常规方法，特别是他们认为预测者在估计关键可能性时应该乐观、现实还是悲观。参与者为不同角色（例如，自我、家庭成员和公职人员）的预测者和几个关键结果（例如，感染新冠病毒和疫苗开发）给出了处方。总体而言，规定的乐观情绪并不常见。事实上，对于备受关注的负面结果，参与者通常希望其他人在估计可能性时抱有悲观偏见。对于积极的结果，人们倾向于更准确的估计。无论假设的预测者的角色如何，这些模式都保持不变。提倡在预测中存在悲观偏见的一个常见理由是增加其他人对保护或预防行为的参与。