Positive Illusions

Definition

Positive illusions refers to a set of three related beliefs that characterize the way people think about (1) themselves, (2) their ability to control environmental events, and (3) their future. Instead of being evenhanded or balanced between the good and the bad, people are unrealistically positive: They believe they have many more positive than negative personal qualities, they exaggerate their abilities to bring about desired outcomes, and they are overly optimistic about their futures. [Page 683]If not too extreme, these positive illusions promote psychological well-being and psychological functioning.

History and Background

Accurate self-views were once thought to be an essential feature of psychological well-being. It is easy to see why. People who harbor delusions of grandeur or believe they control the moon and stars are not paragons of mental health. Whether accuracy is best, however, is another matter. It is entirely possible that excessively positive self-views are detrimental, but mildly positive ones are beneficial.

One way to address this issue is to ask, “Do most people know what they are really like?” For example, suppose we randomly sample a group of people and ask them, “Compared with most other people, how intelligent are you?” Logically, most of the people in our sample should say they are as intelligent as most other people, with the rest equally split between saying they are less intelligent and more intelligent than most other people. This does not occur. Instead, most people say they are more intelligent than most other people. Furthermore, this effect occurs for a wide variety of personality traits and abilities. People believe they are more competent, flexible, and intelligent than others; drive better than others; are more caring, adaptive, and fairer than others; are happier and have better interpersonal relationships than others; and are more deserving of good fortune and good health. They also believe their judgments are less distorted by greed, selfaggrandizement, or personal gain than are other people's judgments and that their opinions are grounded in facts, but other people's opinions are driven by ideology. The bias even extends to friends, family, loved ones, and fellow group members, and is characteristic of people from a variety of cultures.

People also exaggerate their abilities to bring about desired outcomes. They readily credit themselves when things go well, but deny responsibility when things go awry. Together, these beliefs give rise to unrealistic optimism. Believing they are “good” and “powerful,” leads people to believe their futures will be brighter than base rate data justify. For example, even though the current divorce rate in industrialized countries is approximately 50%, roughly three-quarters of newlyweds believe they will never divorce.

The prevalence of illusions does not mean that people are wildly inaccurate. In most cases, the degree of distortion is modest, resulting in a self-portrait that is just a bit too good to be true. Moreover, positive illusions do take reality into account. For example, although smokers think they are less likely to get cancer than are most other smokers, they readily acknowledge they are at greater risk than are nonsmokers.

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