Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological bulletin, 103(2), 193.
Summary
Mental health is generally associated with having a realistic perception of one’s self and of the external world. This paper, and other substantial research, shows that mentally healthy people engage in three illusions. An illusion is a “false mental image or conception.” Mentally healthy people have 1) “unrealistically positive views of the self,” 2) “exaggerated perceptions of personal control,” and 3) “unrealistic optimism.” Surprisingly, depressed individuals and those low in self-esteem tend to not show these perceptual discrepancies. Taken together, these seem to suggest that realistic self-concepts are not consistent with mental health.
These illusions promote certain other characteristics of mental health though, including happiness, relatedness, and “capacity for creative, productive work.” Optimism can also enhance both motivation and performance. Negative mood makes negative results more salient, thereby suppressing motivation and goal-directed action. Just as more shots on the goal usually translates into more goals, the greater persistence associated with positive illusions will generally result in better performance and greater success. Conversely, positive illusions can also cause someone to continue laboring towards a goal that they have no chance of achieving.
Application
Research has shown that self-enhancing biases become more frequent “as the importance of the situation increases.” For example, cancer patients who were able to healthily psychologically adjust to their cancer were found to have beliefs regarding their own coping abilities that were “extraordinary.” Similarly, patients who had recovered from cancer had unrealistic beliefs regarding their ability to prevent cancer recurrences. These experiences show that this unrealistic positivity could be adaptive. It is easy to imagine ways that this could backfire though. Consider the owner of a failing business who, as failure becomes increasingly imminent, becomes more convinced that they know how to turn it around. Instead of closing up shop and saving time and money, they might instead painfully stretch out the inevitable. This bias, that one’s belief in situational control increases with situational importance, seems to not be well studied and could benefit from future research.
Research also shows that negative feedback is often rejected. Sometimes though, as with a firing or even a layoff, it is unavoidable. In this case, self-esteem can be restored by “selectively focusing on one’s positive qualities, on the positive aspects of the unpleasant situation, and on the negative aspects of the former situation.”
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