Bracing for loss.

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Abstract
People find unexpected bad news aversive and often brace themselves by predicting the worst. Three experiments examined whether the pessimism is influenced by personal need. Students who differed in financial need learned that a billing error meant that some students would receive an additional bill from their university. Financially needy students were consistently pessimistic in predicting their likelihood of receiving a bill, whereas non-needy students were not. In addition, the experiments reveal that (a) the pessimism occurred for potential losses but not potential gains, (b) needy students were pessimistic about their own chances but not the chances of a friend, (c) the pessimism was not attributable to needy students' being more readily primed by the news of a possible bill or to needy students' having more experience with billing errors, and (d) the pessimism was specific to monetary losses and did not generalize to other events. The American way of life is replete with encouragement to be optimistic. Many parents raise their children to see the glass as half full and to recognize that every cloud has a silver lining. Maga- zines and television offer feature stories illustrating how determi- nation can turn poverty into riches. Everywhere from "Pollyanna" to "The Little Engine That Could" people are surrounded by support for the value of perseverance and a positive outlook. However, despite their efforts to do so, people do not always look on the bright side; their optimism can fluctuate from one event to the next. The present research examines how personal circum- stances such as priorities, desires, and needs moderate personal predictions. Specifically, we examine the extent to which personal need in a particular domain can affect estimates of the likelihood that one will experience a loss or fail to have his or her needs met in that domain. We propose that people who have high needs within a particular domain will be more pessimistic in anticipation of possible bad news.

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