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Weinstein is generally credited as the first to recognise and name the construct optimistic bias. Weinstein (1980) coined the phrase ‘optimistic bias’ to describe the common misperception that ‘bad things happen to other people, but not to me’. Weinstein (1980) argued that individuals make comparative risk assessments in an egocentric manner, paying little attention to the risk status of others when asked to determine their own relative risk (Chapin, 2001). Weinstein (1987, 1988, 1989) conceded that experience had great influence on optimistic bias, specifically that individuals use past experience to predict their future vulnerability (Chapin, 2001). Individuals believing that they were more likely to experience positive events believed that they were more able to control positive and negative events. Conversely individuals who believed themselves more likely to experience negative events believed themselves to be less in control.

Weinstein (1987) conducted a community wide study of 296 individuals randomly selected from New Jersey and stated that ‘optimistic bias was prevalent in the population as a whole’. It was suggested that participants in his many studies overall

demonstrated a pervasive tendency to view their own risk for a variety of negative life events as significantly below average, accompanied by a diminished sense of susceptibility to harm.

After establishing the existence of optimistic bias, Weinstein endeavoured to explain the phenomenon using two possible theoretical models - the motivational and cognitive models (Weinstein, 1984). The motivational explanation/model for optimistic bias predicted a positive relationship between perceived threat and optimism. Other research went onto suggest possible relationships between perceived risk, threat and defensive denial (Van Der Velde et al., 1992). Weinstein (1980) proposed that the denial interpretation led to the prediction that the more threatening the hazard, the greater the illusion of control.

The second explanation involved cognitive errors. Here, Weinstein (1982) college students were asked about their chances of experiencing 6 negative events and compared with their peers chances of experiencing similar events. Weinstein (1982) referred to egocentrism and stereotypic mental images of the victim. According to this explanation because of egocentricity, individuals may forget that their own efforts to reduce the likelihood of a negative event occurring may be shared by others. For example, those engaging in protective behaviours such as applying sunscreen when outdoors in an effort to reduce the potential for skin cancer, often forget or fail to credit others for engaging in the same activity, thereby imaging their own risk as less than others (Weinstein, 1987). Furthermore, they tended to have a selective recall of factors that reduce one’s risk as compared to factors that increase one’s risk. He suggested that individuals have a stereotypic mental image of the victim, and if they

did not see themselves as fitting the image, they were likely to conclude they were not at risk, even though they differed from the image only in features irrelevant to risk vulnerability. Both the existence of egocentrism and stereotypic mental image were confirmed by Weinstein (1980, 1982, 1984). Although some research suggested that both motivational and cognitive factors play a role in optimistic bias most evidence indicated a primary role of cognitive factors as determinants of optimistic bias (Van Der Velde et al., 1992).

Research such as that by Weinstein and Lachendro (1982) considered optimistic bias as a product of ego-defensive tendencies. In the same year Weinstein investigated optimistic bias about susceptibility to health problems. By the late 1980’s researchers such as Tennen and Affleck (1987) were investigating the costs and benefits of optimistic explanations and found that individuals who were unrealistically optimistic were particularly vulnerable when things went wrong. Conversely the psychological benefits of optimism included reductions in anxiety as well as the ability to carry out everyday activities without being continually ‘on guard’ (Tennen & Affleck, 1987).

While the work of Weinstein (1980,1982) provided a name for the concept of optimistic bias and laid the foundation for explorations into optimistic bias, it was often criticised as being unrepresentative and ungeneralisable because of a tendency of the seminal research to over utilise college students as participants. In an effort to dispel these criticisms Weinstein compiled a community wide sample to examine the impact of unrealistic optimism about susceptibility to health problems. From this research it was concluded that individuals were often ingenious in finding reasons for

believing that their own risk was less than the risk faced by their peers (Weinstein, 1987).

By the end of the 1980’s it appeared that the concept of optimistic bias was fairly well accepted as an explanation for why people considered themselves invulnerable and interest in the construct extended into areas of psychological importance such as, personality, social and clinical psychology. Dolinski, Gromski and Zawisza (1987) and Dewberry, Ing, James, Nixon and Richardson (1990) began to consider the importance of examining unrealistic optimism in relation to the reverse effect, unrealistic pessimism. The research of Dewberry and colleagues (1990) asked participants to complete a questionnaire regarding their expectations about life events. The events covered by this questionnaire included; being the victim of rape, developing cervical cancer and being fired from a job. Dewberry et al. (1990) found that there was a negative correlation between optimism and anxiety that was consistent and global across events. Further, the results of this study revealed a specific rather than global effect of anxiety, attributing to the relationship between emotion and cognitive processes, and their impact on development and sustenance of optimistic bias. Similar research examining the interaction between optimistic bias and personality such as that by Darvill and Johnson (1991), found that optimistic bias was substantially related to extraversion and neuroticism scores on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. This research supported the notion that optimistic bias was a stable and measurable personality construct.

Interestingly, most of Weinstein’s analyses involved comparisons between hazards, rather than between individuals. The danger in this type of analysis according to

Kirscht and associates (1966) was that finding greater average optimism for hazards rated as more preventable was not the same as finding that, for any single hazard, more optimistic individuals give higher ratings for preventability. More recently research such as that by Kreuter and Victor (1995) and Pietromonaco and Rook (1987) examined optimistic bias between individuals, and found that consistent differences in optimistic biases were evident across individuals for a range of conditions providing evidence for the stability of the construct.