You are safer with me: Presence of the self lowers risk perception for others

Abstract

In daily life, various activities are undertaken either alone or with companions, and some of these activities involve a degree of risk. Beyond our concern for our own safety, we also care about other's safety. The current research investigates the influence of self-presence on how we perceive risk for the other. Across six studies (including two preregistered studies), we consistently found that when individuals were present (vs. absent), they were inclined to perceive their friend as safer when exposed to the same source of risk. This difference in perception can be attributed to individuals believing they have greater control over probabilistic events and experiencing lower levels of anxiety when accompanying their friend. Importantly, this perception bias could not be explained by the number of individuals engaging in risky behavior or the extension of optimistic bias. Furthermore, the self-presence effect did not exist among friends characterized by close relationships. These findings reveal a potent source of risk perception bias based solely on the presence of self.