Event frequency and comparative optimism: Another look at the indirect elicitation method of self-others risks

Price, Pentecost, and Voth (2002) argue that common rather than rare negative future life events elicit greater indirect self-others comparative optimism. We argue that this finding may reflect a measurement effect: Rare events generate small differences (but large ratios), whereas common events produce larger differences (but smaller ratios). In Study 1, we show that the greater is event's perceived frequency, the greater is the numerical value assigned to express a given degree of risk discrepancy. In Study 2, we found weak negative rather than positive relations between perceived event frequency and the sense of risk discrepancy. Thus, it is crucial to understand how participants relate the two risk probabilities to each other to estimate their indirect comparative optimism.