HEALTHY, WEALTHY, AND WISE? EXPLORING OPTIMISM BIAS IN PARENT PREDICTIONS ABOUT A CHILD'S FUTURE HEALTH AND SOCIOECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Purpose: Optimism bias, the tendency to overestimate one’s chances of experiencing unlikely positive events relative to one’s peers, is present in parent predictions of their child’s long-term health outcomes, including their child’s risk for overweight or obesity and obesity-related co-morbidities in adulthood. We sought to understand whether parents are more optimistic about their child’s health outcomes relative to education, labor, and other socioeconomic outcomes.

Method: We administered a nationally-representative 10-minute survey to parents of 6-18 year old children (n = 410) though AmeriSpeak®, a division of the National Opinion Research Center. We asked parents to estimate the chances that (a) their child and (b) “a typical child in their community” would be overweight or obese at age 30, complete a 4-year college degree by age 30, get married by age 30, and the child’s likely future income at age 30 on a sliding visual analog scale. We collected data on family demographic and health characteristics, and parent numeracy. Fixed effects models were employed to assess within-parent variance about parents’ future predictions for their child versus predictions for a typical child in their community.

Result: Approximately 69% of children were normal weight and 31% of children were overweight or obese. Compared to the typical child in the community, parents were less likely to predict that their child would be overweight in adulthood (-24.8 percentage points, 95% CI: -27.3, 22.3), more likely to predict that their child would complete a four year degree by age 30 (28.3 percentage points, 95% CI: 25.4, 31.2), and more likely to predict that their child would have a higher income in adulthood ($14,529, 95% CI: 12,758, 16,300). There were no significant differences in parent predictions for their child and the typical child in terms of the probability of being married by age 30 (1.8 percentage points, 95% CI: -0.7, 4.4).

Conclusion: Parents exhibit equal levels of optimism bias around their child’s future health, education, and economic outcomes, but not social outcomes such as marriage. Accurate parental perception of a child’s future outcomes may motivate parents to engage in behavior change to ensure these positive expectations come to fruition. Child development practitioners should develop risk communication approaches that can compensate for optimism bias and improve parent assessment of health and socioeconomic outcomes.