Confidence in judgments of comparative, own, and average person's risk.

Unrealistic optimism is often assessed using a single question asking people to estimate their own risk compared to that of the average person like them. However, it has been proposed that such estimates of comparative risk are based mainly just on estimates of own risk. In two studies (n=80 and n=65), students gave estimates of comparative, own, and average person's risk and rated their confidence in these estimates. Confidence was lower for estimates of average person's risk than for estimates of own and comparative risk, which were given with equal confidence. Results were in accord with the proposal that judgments of comparative risk derive principally from judgments of own risk.