Optimism Bias
Behavioral & Decision Making
Optimism Bias
The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate the likelihood of negative events in one's own future.
Explained
- People overestimate good outcomes and underestimate bad ones for themselves.
- Users genuinely believe they will use a product more, and lapse less, than they do.
- This gap is why ambitious onboarding promises feel believable in the moment.
- It also explains why warnings about future cost or effort get waved away.
In the wild
No indexed product screens use this model yet — check back as more products are analyzed.
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