I notice in the 1994 study, the students were directly asked for their forecasts. Do any of the studies try to get students to write down their forecasts on an envelope to be opened after they have finished their project, to try to avoid any possible social pressure?
“In a different paper, Buehler and colleagues suggest an explanation in terms of the self-serving bias in how people interpret their past performance. By taking credit for tasks that went well but blaming delays on outside influences, people can discount past evidence of how long a task should take.[1] One experiment found that when people made their predictions anonymously, they do not show the optimistic bias. This suggests that the people make optimistic estimates so as to create a favorable impression with others,[8] which is similar to the concepts outlined in impression management theory.”—Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy)
I notice in the 1994 study, the students were directly asked for their forecasts. Do any of the studies try to get students to write down their forecasts on an envelope to be opened after they have finished their project, to try to avoid any possible social pressure?
“In a different paper, Buehler and colleagues suggest an explanation in terms of the self-serving bias in how people interpret their past performance. By taking credit for tasks that went well but blaming delays on outside influences, people can discount past evidence of how long a task should take.[1] One experiment found that when people made their predictions anonymously, they do not show the optimistic bias. This suggests that the people make optimistic estimates so as to create a favorable impression with others,[8] which is similar to the concepts outlined in impression management theory.”—Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy)