Studies have consistently shown that holding all else equal, subjects will predict positive outcomes to be more likely than negative outcomes. Reverse wishful thinking, or wishful thinking in reverse, can be said to occur in a person’s mind when, as a stern, relentless and usually pompous follower of a rational notion, he/she expects it to always be valid regardless of, and/or in spite of either not taking into full account all imponderables or, most common and notably, the lack of up-to-the minute research on the subject, thereby resulting in his/her wrongly assuming that decisions, recommendations and, especially, forecasts derived from that notion can only be the result of either factual evidence, or rationality as known to that person at a particular point in time, all of which invariably taking place before all the said imponderables, and up to the minute, yet public evidence is taken into full account.

A supposedly rational decision, based on logic, and sound evidence available to a particular person, but made obsolete over the immediate, medium and long term as a result of the person’s not being aware that, a couple of days earlier, a highly publicized announcement had been made, in that person’s community, of a large investment to be undertaken by a giant multinational corporation in that particular neighborhood and which included a note on their willingness to pay whatever cost to home owners over the next year or so, their intention being to build a huge mall on the site.