Frontiers in Psychology (Nov 2020)

The Psychology Underlying Biased Forecasts of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in the United States

  • Hersh Shefrin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.590594
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

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This paper discusses the impact of a series of psychological phenomena on the U.S. response to COVID-19, focusing on forecasts of cases and deaths. The specific phenomena comprise unrealistic optimism bias, overconfidence, anchoring and adjustment, representativeness, motivated reasoning, and groupthink.

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