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Received: 16 February 2009 / Accepted: 27 March 2009 / Published online: 16 April 2009
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract The relationship between subjective invulnerability and optimism bias in risk appraisal, and their comparative association with indices of risk activity, substance use and college adjustment problems was assessed in a sample of 350 (M^sub age^ = 20.17; 73% female; 93% White/European American) emerging adults. Subjective invulnerability was measured with the newly devised adolescent invulnerability scale (AIS). Optimism bias in decision-making was assessed with a standard comparative-conditional risk appraisal task. Results showed that the danger- and psychological invulnerability subscales of the AIS demonstrated strong internal consistency and evidence of predictive validity. Subjective invulnerability and optimism bias were also shown to be empirically distinct constructs with differential ability to predict risk and adjustment. Danger invulnerability and psychological invulnerability were more pervasively associated with risk behavior than was optimism bias; and psychological invulnerability counter-indicated depression, self-esteem and interpersonal problems. Results support recent claims regarding the "two faces" of adolescent invulnerability. Implications for future research are drawn.
Keywords Invulnerability * Adolescence * Risk-taking * Adjustment * Optimism bias
Introduction
It is believed widely that adolescents and emerging adults engage in risk behaviors partly because of their felt sense of invulnerability to injury, harm and danger. This view is so common that it seems to be a deeply entrenched part of our folk psychology of adolescence. Yet, in spite of its ubiquity as an explanation of adolescent behavior, there is no consensus on how invulnerability is to be understood, and, indeed, there is controversy about its role in adolescent development and its implications for adaptation (e.g., Elkind 1985; Lapsley and Murphy 1985).
At least two developmental approaches to invulnerability can be discerned in the literature. One approach argues that invulnerability is a problem of cognitive development. That is, invulnerability results from the cognitive egocentrism that attends the transition to formal operations (e.g., Elkind 1967). On this account adolescent egocentrism encourages an over-differentiation of feelings that contributes to the sense of uniqueness and "immortality" (Elkind 1967, p. 1,031). This sense of immortality, in turn, disposes adolescents to believe in a personal fable that harmful outcomes are more likely for others than for the self. For example, and as...