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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 1995 by the American Psychological Association
June 1995 Vol. 68, No. 6, 1152-1162 For personal use only–not for distribution.

Overly Positive Self-Evaluations and Personality:
Negative Implications for Mental Health

C. Randall Colvin
Northeastern University

Jack Block
University of California, Berkeley

David C. Funder
University of California, Riverside

ABSTRACT

The relation between overly positive self-evaluations and psychological adjustment was
examined. Three studies, two based on longitudinal data and another on laboratory data,
contrasted self-descriptions of personality with observer ratings (trained examiners or
friends) to index self-enhancement. In the longitudinal studies, self-enhancement was
associated with poor social skills and psychological maladjustment 5 years before and 5
years after the assessment of self-enhancement. In the laboratory study, individuals who
exhibited a tendency to self-enhance displayed behaviors, independently judged, that
seemed detrimental to positive social interaction. These results indicate there are negative
short-term and long-term consequences for individuals who self-enhance and, contrary to
some prior formulations, imply that accurate appraisals of self and of the social environment
may be essential elements of mental health.

Preparation of this article was supported, in part, by a Northeastern University Research and Scholarship
Development Fund award and by three National Institute of Mental Health grants.
Correspondence may be addressed to C. Randall Colvin, Department of Psychology, Northeastern
University, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115.
Electronic mail may be sent to colvin@neu.edu
Correspondence may be addressed to David C. Funder, Department of Psychology, University of
California, Riverside, California, 92521.
Received: February 21, 199

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Revised: December 9, 1994
Accepted: December 12, 1994

Traditional conceptions of mental health have held that well-adjusted people perceive relatively
accurately the impact and ramifications of their social behavior and possess generally valid information
about the self. Jahoda (1958) described the mentally healthy person as someone “able to take in matters
one wishes were different, without distorting them to fit these wishes” (p. 51). Allport (1937) also placed
great importance on accurate self-knowledge, stating that

an impartial and objective attitude toward oneself is held to be a primary virtue, basic to the

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development of all others. There is but a weak case for chronic self-deception with its
crippling self-justifications and rationalizations that prevent adaptation and growth. And so
it may be said that if any trait of personality is intrinsically desirable, it is the disposition and
ability to see oneself in perspective.(p. 422)

Despite the long influence of these and related writings, and their obvious accordance with common
sense, the reality-based view of mental health recently has undergone serious challenge.

In a highly influential and provocative article, Taylor and Brown (1988) surveyed the then-current social
psychological literature and concluded that mentally healthy individuals characteristically manifest three
“pervasive, enduring, and systematic” (p. 194) illusions. These illusions are unrealistically positive
self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism . They educed
this conclusion from studies purportedly demonstrating that depressed and low-self-esteem individuals
exhibit more accurate perceptions than persons who are not depressed or who are high in self-esteem.
They further argued that individuals who engage in such self-enhancing positive illusions are more
disposed to be psychologically healthy. This radically different view of mental health has become widely
cited and suddenly popular.

Taylor and Brown’s influential conclusion hinges on whether the studies they evaluate have used valid,
even reasonable, criteria for self-enhancement. Three criteria have been used, prior to and subsequent to
the publication of Taylor and Brown’s review.

First, several studies reviewed by Taylor and Brown (1988) , and other more recent studies, report that
participants rate themselves more favorably and less negatively than generalized others (e.g., an
unknown hypothetical average college student). These findings have been used to conclude that the
perception most people have of themselves is unrealistic and overly positive (e.g., Alicke, 1985 ; Alloy &
Ahrens, 1987 ; Brinthaupt, Moreland, & Levine, 1991 ; Brown, 1986 ; Pyzczynski, Holt, & Greenberg,
1987 ). Moreover, participants who like themselves and experience relatively high levels of positive
affect have been reported to exhibit a greater discrepancy between self-ratings and ratings of a
generalized other than participants who feel less positively about themselves and who manifest relatively
high levels of negative affect (e.g., Agostinelli, Sherman, Presson, & Chassin, 1992 ; Brown, 1986 ).
These data have been interpreted as indicating that whereas most people tend to self-enhance,
high-self-esteem individuals are more likely to exhibit self-enhancing tendencies than are
low-self-esteem individuals.

A second set of studies has demonstrated that when people are asked to rank themselves in comparison to
“most other people” on broad personality characteristics or on general abilities, the majority of people
rank themselves higher than most other people. Because logically all or most people cannot rank higher
than the median rank, it has been concluded that people exaggerate their positive personal characteristics
( Buunk & Van Yperen, 1991 ; Larwood & Whitaker, 1977 ; Pelham & Swann, 1989 ; Svenson, 1981 ;
Weinstein, 1980 ).

A third set of studies has shown that people tend to recall more positive than negative information about
the self ( Crary, 1966 ; Kuiper & Derry, 1982 ; Kuiper & MacDonald, 1982 ; Kuiper, Olinger,
MacDonald, & Shaw, 1985 ; Silverman, 1964 ). This finding is particularly pronounced for individuals
who have high self-esteem or who experience relatively high levels of positive affect. Persons low in
self-esteem or who are moderately dysphoric tend to recall a less imbalanced number of positive and

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negative characteristics. These results have been interpreted as indicating that well-functioning
individuals exhibit distortions in memory and recall that serve to enhance their self-regard (e.g., Kuiper
& Derry, 1982 ; Kuiper & MacDonald, 1982 ).

However, this evidence and these conclusions recently have undergone critical reevaluation ( Colvin &
Block, 1994 ). A key point of Colvin and Block’s critique is that these several kinds of studies, just cited,
are generally uninformative about the process, meaning, and effect of self-enhancement because they all
lack a reasonable operationalization of self-enhancement. To evaluate whether a person accurately views
him- or herself, a comparison of the individual’s self-description with valid external criteria for that
person is required ( Colvin & Block, 1994 ; Cronbach & Meehl, 1955 ). This minimum standard
generally has not been observed. As a result, prior studies investigating self-enhancement have been
plagued by ambiguous results permitting alternative explanations.

For example, studies comparing participants’ self-descriptions with their descriptions of generalized
others are of obscure implication. In an unknown number of instances, when a participant describes him-
or herself more favorably than an unknown and hypothetical average person, he or she will be accurate
(i.e., some individuals are indeed better off than the average individual). A normative finding that, on
average, individuals view themselves as better than average, does not separate the accurate individuals
from the inaccurate, self-enhancing individuals. In other cases, the application of valid logic may be
responsible for discrepancies between self and other descriptions. College students typically have been
the kind of people asked to participate in these experiments. College students know themselves to be
relatively intelligent, they also know that intelligence varies greatly across individuals, and therefore it is
logical and valid for them to rate themselves as higher in intelligence than an unknown, average person.

There is a further problem with attributing self-enhancement bias to all people who rate themselves
“better off than most.” Ranking oneself relative to “most others” on a broadly construed dimension is
inherently problematic. If people are asked to rank themselves relative to others on happiness, for
example, Jeff might rank himself highly because of his ability as a baseball player, Jackie might rank
herself highly because of her musical talents, and John might rank himself highly because of the money
he has accumulated. Because these are important and defining characteristics of one’s self-concept, they
represent appropriate choices on which to compare the self with others. It is thus conceivable that a
majority of people can be better off than most when the dimension to be rated is vaguely defined and
people are given the latitude to rank themselves on self-selected, often idiosyncratic categories. It has
been demonstrated that when a dimension is clearly and precisely defined, thereby limiting private
interpretations, the better-off-than-most effect diminishes ( Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989 ).

More generally, Robins and John (in press) point out that in fact most people can be better than average
on any characteristic, as long as (a) the central tendency is taken to be indicated by the arithmetic mean
rather than the median, and (b) even a small number of individuals are much below that mean (i.e., the
characteristic’s distribution is negatively skewed). For example, if the comparison group includes a few
pathologically depressed individuals, then nearly everybody else in that group could be above the mean
in happiness.

In other studies, the finding of a higher ratio of positive to negative trait descriptors for well-adjusted
people than for poorly adjusted people does not imply that mentally healthy individuals exhibit an
unrealistic self-enhancement bias, neither does it imply undue self-deprecation on the part of less
mentally healthy individuals. Rather, this finding is definitional or tautological: Mentally healthy people

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should have more positive things to say about themselves than should people who are poorly adjusted,
think negatively of themselves, and are dysphoric ( J. Block & Thomas, 1955 ; Gjerde, Block, & Block,
1988 ; Kendall, Howard, & Hays, 1989 ; Rosenberg, 1985 ). Therefore, it is not surprising that when
individuals are asked to recall self-defining characteristics, mentally healthy people recall positive traits
with greater ease and frequency than do people lacking in mental health (e.g., Kuiper & Derry, 1982 ;
Kuiper & MacDonald, 1982 ).

An additional limitation of these various approaches to studying overly positive self-evaluations is that,
typically, self-reports of personality are used to identify the characteristics of self-enhancing people. A
frequent finding from this kind of research has been that people who self-enhance also describe
themselves as being high in self-esteem. This result, although robust, is of doubtful import. By definition,
individuals who exhibit self-enhancing tendencies should positively distort affect-laden self-evaluations.
Therefore, all self-report measures that contain a self-evaluation component may well be positively
biased and of questionable validity for individuals with self-enhancing tendencies ( J. Block & Thomas,
1955 ; Shedler, Mayman, & Manis, 1993 ).

The preceding discussion suggests that the criteria for overly positive self-evaluation used in previous
research have been problematic and therefore that the conclusion reached of a relation between positive
illusions and mental health may be premature. To advance understanding further in this area will require
more and different data from that reported to date. In particular, improved operationalizations of
self-enhancement are necessary to examine the tendency of some people to evaluate their own
characteristics in an overly positive way.

No single, perfect criterion for self-enhancement exists, nor should one be expected to exist. Research on
self-enhancement is subject to the same logic and limitations as research on the accuracy of personality
judgments (see Colvin & Funder, 1991 ; Funder & Colvin, 1988 ). A construct validity approach is
required ( Cronbach & Meehl, 1955 ). That is, although no single definition of self-enhancement will
suffice, if differing but conceptually reasonable operationalizations yield research that converges on the
same general conclusion, we may eventually become convinced the conclusion is valid.

In this article, we used several different operationalizations of self-enhancement, with participants of
various ages and from two independent samples. Each operationalization contrasts an individual’s
self-evaluations with observer evaluations of his or her personality. To the extent that these various and
independent indicators generate similar and meaningful empirical relationships with independent sources
of personality and behavioral data, a convergent characterization of the self-enhancing individual may be
identified.

Study

1

In Study 1 we assessed self-enhancement when participants were age 18 by comparing their
self-descriptions with trained examiners’ assessments of their personalities. We then related these
self-enhancement scores to personality descriptions of the participants provided 5 years later by an
entirely independent team of examiners.

Method Participants

Participants were 101 23-year-olds, 51 men and 50 women, from an initial sample of 130 (see J. H.

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Block & Block, 1980 , for an extended discussion of the aims of the study). The participants were
initially recruited at age 3 while attending either a university-run or parent-cooperative nursery school.
These participants live primarily in urban settings and were heterogeneous with respect to race, social
class, and parent education. They had been assessed on a battery of widely ranging psychological
measures at ages 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 14, 18, and 23. We analyzed a subset of data collected at ages 14, 18, and
23 for this article.

Personality Descriptions Examiner-based California Adult Q-set (CAQ).

The personality characteristics of each participant were described by four examiner—assessors at age 18,
and by six examiner—assessors at age 23, using the standard vocabulary of the CAQ ( J. Block,
1961/1978 ). The CAQ consists of 100 statements, each printed on a separate card, that describe a wide
range of personality, cognitive, and social attributes. The task of the examiners was to sort these 100
statements into nine categories ranging from least characteristic of the participant (1) to most
characteristic of the participant (9). The examiner was required to place a predetermined number of
statements into each category (e.g., 5 in Categories 1 and 9, 8 in Categories 2 and 8, 12 in Categories

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and 7, etc.). The personality descriptions were averaged across the examiners to obtain a composite
personality description of each participant at age 18 and again at age 23.

These descriptions were provided by examiners who were doctoral-level personality or clinical
psychologists, or advanced graduate students in a doctoral program in personality or clinical psychology.
The examiners each had engaged the participant in one or more research procedures or had had other
formal and informal contacts with the participant over the course of an assessment battery conducted
across many sessions over several days. The Spearman—Brown average item reliabilities for the two
composites were .59 for age 18 and .69 for age 23. It is important to note that two entirely independent
teams of examiners provided personality descriptions for the age 18 and age 23 assessments.

Adjective Q-set (AQS).

The AQS consists of 43 adjectives (e.g., energetic, adventurous, cheerful ), each printed on a separate
card, that cover a broad range of personality characteristics. At age 18, participants described their own
personalities by placing each of the 43 cards into one of seven categories, using a rectangular
distribution, ranging from least descriptive of self (1) to most descriptive of self (7). (See J. Block &
Robins, 1993 , for additional details and analyses pertaining to the AQS.)

Results and Discussion

Self-enhancement was operationally defined as the discrepancy in favorability between self- and
examiner ratings of personality. The derivation of the age 18 self-enhancement score required three steps.
First, using the prototype approach ( J. Block, 1957 ), we developed a favorability prototype for the AQS
and for the CAQ. For each of the 43 AQS items, four raters responded on a 1 ( very unfavorably ) to 7 (
very favorably ) scale to the question “How favorably or unfavorably would you regard a person who
possessed this trait?” We aggregated the four sets of ratings to obtain a 43-item composite with an alpha
reliability of .94. For the CAQ, nine raters provided responses on a 1 ( very unfavorably ) to 9 ( very
favorably ) scale to the identically worded question for all 100 items. The resulting alpha reliability of
this 100-item composite was .95 (see Funder & Dobroth, 1987 ). Second, we calculated participant and
examiner favorability scores. The participant favorability scores were derived by correlating each
participant’s age 18 43-item AQS with the 43-item favorability composite. Resulting scores ranged from

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− .21 to .89, with higher scores indicating greater self-evaluated favorability ( M = .51, SD = .31). 1
Examiner-based favorability scores were derived by correlating each participant’s age 18 100-item CAQ
description with the 100-item favorability prototype. Resulting scores ranged from − .49 to .91, with
higher scores representing more favorable evaluations of participants’ personalities by the examiners ( M
= .69, SD = .40). Third, and finally, we calculated the discrepancy between self-evaluated and
examiner-evaluated favorability by subtracting the Fisher transformed examiner score from the Fisher
transformed self score ( M = − .28, SD = .41). Greater self-enhancement was indicated by relatively
larger and more positive discrepancy scores.

We then correlated the self-enhancement scores from age 18 with each of the 100 CAQ items at age 23,
separately for the male and female samples. The results are reported in Table 1 . Men who exhibited
self-enhancing tendencies at age 18 were described relatively negatively 5 years later by assessors who
had had no prior experience with the participants. Men who self-enhanced were described as being
guileful and deceitful, distrustful of people, and as having a brittle ego-defense system. In contrast, men
with lesser tendencies toward self-enhancement were described as relatively straightforward and
forthright, possessing high intellect, and having an internally consistent personality. One can speculate,
on the basis of the content of the correlates, that the self-enhancement observed in these young men
represented efforts to compensate for shortcomings in coping and interpersonal skills.

Women who self-enhanced also were described in negative terms, although somewhat differently from
men. Two items that strongly characterize these women–”sex-typed” and “regards self as physically
attractive”–are not inherently negative in tone, but they connote a rigid, narcissistic style when combined
with the women’s other qualities, such as being thin-skinned, self-defensive, and denying of unpleasant
thoughts and conflicts. Perhaps these women self-enhanced to look better to themselves, whereas the
self-enhancing men enhanced to have others look more favorably on them. Women who tend to abstain
from self-enhancement were described as introspective, complex, interesting, intelligent people. In
general, these women appeared to look inward and accept what they saw more than women who tended
to self-enhance.

In summary, these data suggest that long-term negative interpersonal and psychological consequences
await both young men and young women who engage in self-enhancing tendencies.

Study

2

In Study 2, self-enhancement scores were derived at age 23 and related to personality descriptions
obtained at age 18. Again, self-enhancement scores and personality descriptions were strictly
independent. A special feature of this study is that self-enhancement scores were related to personality
descriptions offered by friends as well as examiner—assessors.

Method Participants

Participants were the same individuals who participated in Study 1. Sample sizes occasionally differ
because of incomplete data.

Personality Descriptions Friends’ CAQ descriptions.

At age 18, participants were asked to nom-inate a number of friends who might be willing to describe
them using the CAQ method of personality description. In all, 62 participants were described by an
average of 3 friends.

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Self CAQ description.

At age 23, each participant described his or her own personality using a version of the CAQ modified to
clarify certain items potentially unclear to lay persons ( Block, 1989 ).

Examiner CAQ descriptions.

As noted in Study 1, separate sets of examiner—assessors described the personalities of participants on
the CAQ at age 18 and at age 23. In addition, participants’ personalities were described at age 14 by 4
examiner—assessors using the CAQ.

Results and Discussion

As previously noted, different operationalizations of self-enhancement were deliberately used in order to
improve the generality of the results obtained. In this study, we used the CAQ favorability prototype
ratings described in Study 1 to create self and examiner measures of favorability, but in a different way. 2
We selected the 12 items rated most favorable (e.g., “dependable, responsible person,” “is cheerful,”
“liked, accepted by people”) to construct measures of self-evaluated and examiner-perceived favorability.
Self-evaluated favorability was calculated by summing participants’ CAQ self-descriptions on the 12
items; similarly, examiner-perceived favorability was calculated by summing examiners’ composite
ratings on the same 12 items. Participants’ favorability scores ranged from 45 to 94 with M = 77 and SD
= 10, whereas examiners’ favorability scores ranged from 37 to 92, with M = 72 and SD = 15. The means
were significantly different, t (93) = 3.82, p < .001, indicating that, in general, participants evaluated themselves more favorably than examiners. The reliabilities of the two measures were adequate (participant favorability α = .73; examiner favorability α = .89). We derived self-enhancement scores by subtracting examiner favorability from participant favorability ( M = 5, SD = 12).

These self-enhancement scores were correlated with all 100 friend-rated CAQ items, separately for men
and for women. Self-enhancement scores also were correlated with the 100 examiner CAQ items, as
rated by the examiner—assessors at age 18. The results are reported in Table 2 and in Table 3 . Men and
women who self-enhanced at age 23 were portrayed relatively negatively 5 years earlier. Men who
self-enhanced were earlier described by their friends as condescending in relations with others, having
hostility toward others, and unable to delay gratification. In contrast, men who did not vaunt themselves
were described earlier by their friends as sympathetic and considerate, having a clear-cut and consistent
personality, and as having a giving way with others. Women who self-enhanced were described earlier
by their friends as having hostility toward others, as self-defeating, and as having a brittle ego-defense
system. Women who did not self-enhance were favorably described earlier by their friends: They were
liked and accepted by people, cheerful, and viewed as having social poise and presence. These
descriptions by close friends again indicate, but in a different way, that self-enhancement does not seem
to be effective in influencing and facilitating positive perceptions of oneself by others. Friends are able to
see through to the person behind the proffered mask.

Examiner—assessors of the participants at age 18 provided equally negative personality descriptions of
men and women who exhibited self-enhancing tendencies 5 years later at age 23 (see Table 3 ). They
described self-enhancing men and women as concerned with their own adequacy, as self-pitying,
self-defeating, as basically anxious, and as lacking a sense of personal meaning in life. In contrast,
examiners described men and women who did not self-enhance as personally charming, socially poised,
and sought by others for advice.

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The content of the CAQ items in Table 2 and Table 3 suggests that individuals who refrain from overly
positive self-evaluations exhibit better psychological adjustment than people who self-enhance. To test
this global conjecture, a broad, encompassing measure of psychological adjustment was needed. On the
basis of the definition of ego resiliency offered by J. H. Block and Block (1980) , a construct that
underlies dynamically resourceful psychological adjustment, nine raters previously had used the 100
CAQ items to describe the characteristics most salient of the prototypical ego-resilient person. The
resulting prototype ( α = .95) was correlated with examiner CAQ composites at age 14 and at age 18;
high scores indicated that a person was relatively ego resilient, whereas low scores indicated that a
person was relatively ego brittle. We aggregated the age 14 and age 18 ego-resiliency scores and
subsequently related them to self-enhancement scores at age 23. Results indicated that ego resiliency
assessed in middle and late adolescence was negatively correlated with the tendency to self-enhance in
early adulthood, r (92) = − .40, p < .001, suggesting that overly positive self-evaluations go along with an absence of resiliency. This result directly contradicts the thesis that self-enhancement and, more generally, positive illusions, are characteristic of people who are psychologically well adjusted (cf. Taylor & Brown, 1988 ).

Study 3

The two longitudinal studies suggest that self-enhancement is associated with negative interpersonal
consequences over time. In Study 3 we explored the more immediate and short-term concomitants of
self-enhancement by examining the individual differences in social behavior associated with this
tendency.

Method Participants

Participants were 70 male and 70 female undergraduates from a northeastern university. They were
videotaped in three different situations and also described their own personalities on a variety of
measures. Peers were recruited by participants to provide descriptions of the participants’ personalities.
Overall, 128 participants were described by two peers, and 10 participants were described by a single
peer. Across the analyses to be reported, the number of participants varies slightly because of incomplete
data. 3

Procedure Participant data.

Participants responded to a campus advertisement requesting individuals to participate in a study of “how
people perceive each other.” Shortly thereafter, participants were scheduled to participate in a social
interaction with an opposite-sex partner who also was a participant in the study. When the second
participant appeared and it was verified that the 2 participants had not met each other previously, the
male experimenter showed the participants into a small room equipped with a couch and a highly visible
video camera and videocassette recorder. He invited the participants to sit on the couch, aimed the
camera at them, activated the videocassette recorder, and left, saying “You can talk about whatever you’d
like; I’ll be back in about 5 minutes.” Typically, a “getting-acquainted” conversation then ensued, in
which participants exchanged names and home towns and discussed such topics as classes, athletics, and
campus housing. After about 5 min, the experimenter returned and turned off the video equipment. He
then led the participants to another room where they described their own personalities using the CAQ.

Approximately 4 weeks later, participants were contacted and scheduled to participate in another

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videotaped interaction with a different, and again unfamiliar, opposite-sex partner. When both
participants arrived, the experimenter proceeded exactly as in the first session. A few minutes after the
interaction was completed, the experimenter handed each participant a clipboard and said:

The next thing I do is hand each of you a pad of paper because some people like to be able
to take some notes during the next part of the experiment. That is because the next part calls
for the two of you to have a little debate. Specifically, the topic we have people debate is the
use of capital punishment, because most people can come up with at least some arguments
on both sides of that issue. I’ll just flip a coin and have [name of one of the participants] call
it. If it comes up what you call, you will be in favor of capital punishment and if it doesn’t
then you will be against it. [The experimenter then flipped the coin.] Okay, the debate will
last about another five minutes. I’ll just give you a short minute to collect your thoughts and
then we’ll start [Session 3].

After a brief pause, the experimenter said “Begin,” activated the video recorder, and left the room. He
returned 5 min later and turned off the equipment. For the purposes of the present analysis, we focus on
the behavior occurring in this last session. By the time participants participated in this final session, they
had become more relaxed in the research context, exhibited more friendly behavior, and had interacted
on one prior occasion with their debate partner (see Funder & Colvin, 1991 ). Furthermore, because this
last session–a debate–was considered likely to evoke self-evaluations associated with interpersonal
success and failure, it was anticipated to be the most revealing of the situations with regard to the social
behaviors of the participants. 4

Peer ratings.

Participants were asked at the end of the first videotaped interaction to recruit two people in the
immediate vicinity who knew them well and who would be willing to participate in the study. These
peers were contacted and described the participant’s personality using the CAQ. On average, these peers
had known the participants for 18.5 months ( SD = 18.9; range from 2 to 137 months). Fifty-six percent
of the peers described themselves as being primarily a friend of the participant, 33% as a roommate, 8%
as a boyfriend or girlfriend, and 3% as other (e.g., a sibling). All peers were assured (truthfully) that their
descriptions would not be made available to the participants they described.

Behavioral coding.

The coding scheme used to code the participants’ videotaped debate behaviors consisted of a 62-item
Q-sort deck ( J. Block, 1961/1978 ; Stephenson, 1953 ) that is called the BQ (for Behavioral Q-sort;
Funder & Colvin, 1991 ). The BQ items were each written to describe categories of directly observable
but psychologically meaningful behavior (e.g., Exhibits social skills, Behaves in a cheerful manner).

Each of the coders watched the 5-min debate videotape, which was to be coded a minimum of two times,
and was permitted to watch the videotape as many times as desired so as to feel confident in providing
behavioral descriptions of the particular participant. Coders then arranged the cards of the BQ deck into a
forced, quasi-normal distribution ranging from 1 ( not at all or negatively characteristic of the behavior
of the person in question ) to 9 ( highly characteristic of the person’s behavior ). Coders were instructed
to use the BQ items to describe only behaviors they had witnessed on the videotape and to avoid, so far
as was possible, “playing psychologist” or making inferences about participants’ general behavioral
dispositions. Each 5-min interaction was coded by an average of six coders. The resulting aggregate

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(Spearman—Brown) reliabilities of the BQ items ranged as high as .82, with a median reliability of .64
(for further information on the procedures, and on the reliabilities and item properties of all 62 BQ items,
see Funder & Colvin, 1991 ).

Results and Discussion

The measure of self-enhancement used in this study was derived by subtracting peer-rated favorability
from self-rated favorability. To obtain this measure, participants’ and peers’ CAQ personality profiles
were correlated with the full 100-item favorability prototype (as described in Study 1). The resulting
scores ranged from − .25 to .78 for self-perceived favorability and from − .39 to .86 for peer-rated
favorability. On average, participants’ ( M = .52) and peers’ ( M = .54) perceptions of favorability did not
significantly differ, t (136) = − .74, p > .46.

Self-enhancement scores ( M = − .02, SD = .35) were related to independent ratings of social behavior in
an opposite-sex dyad; the results are reported in Table 4 . Men characterized as possessing overly
positive self-evaluations were observed to speak quickly, to interrupt their partner, to brag, and to express
hostility, whereas men with lesser self-enhancing tendencies were found to exhibit social skills, to
express sympathy and liking toward their partner, and to be liked by their partner. Similar to their male
counterparts, women characterized as having self-enhancing tendencies also displayed a range of
negatively evaluated behaviors: They were described as seeking reassurance from their partner, as acting
in an irritable fashion, and as exhibiting an awkward interpersonal style. In contrast, women who did not
manifest overly positive self-evaluations were observed to exhibit social skills, to enjoy the interaction
with their partner, to like and be liked by their partner, and appear to be relaxed and comfortable.

These results suggest that both men and women who routinely self-enhance are also likely to manifest
behaviors that are immediately detrimental to their social interactions. Thus, whatever the boost in
self-esteem provided the person by an overly positive self-evaluation, on a day-to-day, ongoing basis the
self-enhancing individual may tend to evoke distancing interpersonal reactions from the individuals
encountered. In a psychodynamically perverse way, the consequent affective coolness on the part of the
people in the social surround is likely to make the self-enhancers lonely and, in compensation, reinforce
their narcissism. Over time, these effects would probably lead to the kind of negative interpersonal and
psychological consequences seen in the two longitudinal studies (Studies 1 and 2).

General Discussion

Convergence of Evidence

We began this article by noting insufficiencies in the operationalizations of self-enhancement that have
been used in previous research. The present research sought to escape these shortcomings by comparing
directly self-evaluations with various external criteria that may be said to have an intrinsic validity.
Across three studies, overly positive self-evaluation was indexed by the difference in favorability
between participants’ self-descriptions and independent descriptions of the participants by assessors and
friends. The results consistently indicate that, for both sexes, friends and assessors hold relatively
negative impressions of people who self-enhance. Furthermore, the negative relationship observed
between ego resiliency and self-enhancement–further articulated by the specific CAQ correlates of
self-enhancement–suggests that psychological adjustment is not facilitated by engaging in unrealistically
positive self-evaluations (see also J. Block & Thomas, 1955 ). These data contravene Taylor and Brown’s

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(1988) thesis that positive illusions bring about and maintain psychological well-being and instead
suggest that accurate appraisals of the self and of the social environment are essential elements of
positive mental health.

Several aspects of the present data may make this conclusion particularly persuasive. First, the various
operationalizations used in this article, in which a self view of personality was compared with an external
view of the participant’s personality, each represent a close mapping onto the conceptual definition of
self-enhancement–an extremely favorable perception of self that is inconsistent with the social reality
about the self. This conceptual apposition has not been used in most previous research, and when it has
been invoked (e.g., Lewinsohn, Mischel, Chaplin, & Barton, 1980 ), the research involved has been beset
with methodological or conceptual limitations (for an extended discussion, see Colvin & Block, 1994 ).
Furthermore, the present results are based on naturalistic and highly generalizable data rather than on
laboratory data often of unevaluated real-life meaning. Finally, our findings exhibit a remarkable degree
of convergence across both sexes, two independent research programs, and two developmental periods.
In addition, self-enhancement demonstrated a substantial degree of rank order stability from age 18 to
age 23, r (91) = .38, p < .001, providing further evidence for the generalizability of the self-enhancement construct and of the findings.

Short-Term Versus Long-Term Consequences of Self-Deception

The present results for the first time reveal long-term consequences of illusional cognitions about which,
in the past, researchers could only speculate (e.g., Taylor & Brown, 1988 ). Studies 1 and 2 indicated that
people with a tendency to self-enhance during their developmental transition to adulthood were
characterized as being relatively maladjusted during adolescence and early adulthood. These findings
contrast strikingly with those from the laboratory studies reviewed by Taylor and Brown (1988) that led
them to conclude “it appears to be not the well-adjusted individual but the individual who experiences
subjective distress who is more likely to process self-relevant information in a relatively unbiased and
balanced fashion” (p. 196). How can these seemingly incompatible results be reconciled?

One possibility stems from the different implications that follow from brief laboratory experiments as
compared to long-term longitudinal studies. Laboratory studies may be well suited to determine the
immediate effect of an experimental manipulation. If the experiment happens to include a failure
manipulation, individuals who self-enhance in response to the manipulation may well provide themselves
a boost in positive affect to counteract their immediate sense of failure ( Weiner, 1990 ). The experiment,
however, usually stops at this point; the long-term consequences associated with the recurring and
regular use of self-enhancement have not before been studied. Yet, for large, implicative generalizations,
such long-term consequences must be evaluated. The present analyses suggest that self-enhancement,
while aiding one’s self-esteem, is over the long term an ineffective interpersonal strategy with both
friends and acquaintances and, therefore, the growth or development of self. A vicious cycle is generated
whereby self-enhancement is rigidly and frequently used to maintain positive self-regard but at a
continual and cumulative cost of alienating one’s friends and discouraging new acquaintances. A deep
albeit perhaps unrecognized and unacknowledged sense of uneasiness consequently may pervade the
self-enhancer, hardly a condition conducive to mental health. Ultimately, we believe, to break this sad
cycle an individual must achieve more accurate self-perceptions with acknowledgment, acceptance, and
humor regarding one’s inevitable and human frailties. One can then still like oneself and find rewarding
social validation. Driven, suppressive, narcissistic claims of self-perfection, as our findings indicate, do
not dispose one toward social adaptations that warrant being called “mentally healthy.”

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On Cause and Effect

The theoretical picture of the self-enhancement process presented throughout this article generally views
the tendency as a cause of interpersonal difficulties and psychological maladjustment. Of course,
however, cause and effect are not easily separated at either the empirical or the theoretical level. The
correlation coefficients presented in our several tables do not distinguish between the possibilities that
self-enhancement causes difficulties in life, or that psychological maladjustment may be manifested, in
certain individuals, by a tendency to unrealistically self-enhance ( J. Block & Thomas, 1955 ). In the end,
no sharp distinction can or need be drawn. It seems abundantly clear from the present data that
self-enhancement, far from serving as an aid to interpersonal or psychological adjustment, is part of a
pattern of self-perception and behavior that must be viewed as unhealthy overall.

Conclusion

In sum, the three studies we report in this article may provide a unique and even important contribution
toward the understanding of self-enhancing behavior. Although there are inherent philosophical
difficulties in asserting that observer ratings (or any other criterion) adequately represent “reality,” it is
also the case that the convergences observed among friends’ and examiners’ personality descriptions of
self-enhancing individuals provide a compelling case that we have touched at least a social reality. We
have found reliable individual differences in the tendency to self-enhance that relate to the individual’s
social stimulus value. The interpersonal implications of these differences are socially unfortunate and
seem to have implications for psychological maladjustment.

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1

Throughout this research, we used the Fisher r—z transformation when averaging, and calculating the
difference between, correlation coefficients.

2

A self-enhancement index in which self and examiner CAQ descriptions were related to the full 100-item
CAQ favorability prototype produced results virtually identical to those reported in Table 2 and Table 3 .

3

These data are part of a larger research project on the accuracy of personality judgment. Several articles,
spanning different conceptual domains, have used portions of the data reported in this study (e.g., Colvin,
1993 ; Colvin & Funder, 1991 ; Funder & Colvin, 1988 ; Funder & Colvin, 1991 ; Funder & Sneed, 1993
). The analyses reported in this article have not been reported previously.

4

It was in fact the case that self-enhancement related to behavior only in the debate situation. We

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speculate that this last situation evoked competitive, hostile, and narcissistic behaviors to a much greater
degree than the first two situations, in which participants met and became acquainted with a member of
the opposite sex and therefore were probably compelled to exhibit their “best behavior.”

Table 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

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Table 4.

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apa.org
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Psyehologlcal Bulletin Copyright 1988 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
1988, Vol. 103, No. 2, 193-210 0033-2909/88/$00.75

Illusion and Well-Being: A Social Psychological
Perspective on Mental Health

Shelley E. Taylor
University of California, Los Angeles

Jonathon D. Brown
Southern Methodist University

Many prominent theorists have argued that accurate perceptions of the self, the world, and the future
are essential for mental health. Yet considerable research evidence suggests that overly positive self-
evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism are characteris-
tic of normal human thought. Moreover, these illusions appear to promote other criteria of mental
health, including the ability to care about others, the ability to be happy or contented, and the ability
to engage in productive and creative work. These strategies may succeed, in large part, because both
the social world and cognitive-processing mechanisms impose filters on incoming information that
distort it in a positive direction; negative information may be isolated and represented in as unthreat-
ening a manner as possible. These positive illusions may be especially useful when an individual
receives negative feedback or is otherwise threatened and may be especially adaptive under these
circumstances.

Decades of psychological wisdom have established contact
with reality as a hallmark of mental health. In this view, the
wcU-adjusted person is thought to engage in accurate reality
testing, whereas the individual whose vision is clouded by illu-
sion is regarded as vulnerable to, if not already a victim of, men-
tal illness. Despite its plausibility, this viewpoint is increasingly
difficult to maintain (cf. Lazarus, 1983). A substantial amount
of research testifies to the prevalence of illusion in normal hu-
man cognition (see Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Grccnwald, 1980; Nis-
bett & Ross, 1980; Sackeim, 1983; Taylor, 1983). Moreover,
these illusions often involve central aspects of the self and the
environment and, therefore, cannot be dismissed as inconse-
quential.

In this article, we review research suggesting that certain illu-
sions may be adaptive for mental health and well-being. In par-
ticular, we examine evidence that a set of interrelated positive
illusions–namely, unrealistically positive self-evaluations, ex-
aggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic op-
timism-can serve a wide variety of cognitive, affectivc, and
social functions. We also attempt to resolve the following para-

Preparation of this article was supported by National Science Foun-
dation Grant BNS 83-08524, National Cancer Institute Grant CA
36409, and Research Scientist Development Award MH 00311 from the
National Institute of Mental Health to Shelley E. Taylor. Jonathon D.
Brown was supported by a University of California, Los Angeles, Chan-
cellor’s fellowship and by a Southern Methodist University new-faculty
seed grant.

We owe a great deal to a number of individuals who commented on
earlier drafts: Nancy Cantor, Edward Emery, Susan Fiske, Tony Green-
wald, Connie Hammen, Darrin Lehman, Chuck McClintock, Dick
Nisbett, Lee Ross, Bill Swann, Joanne Wood, and two anonymous re-
viewers.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Shel-
ley E. Taylor, University of California, Department of Psychology, 405
Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024-1563.

dox: How can positive misperceptions of one’s self and the envi-
r o n m e n t be adaptive when accurate information processing
seems to be essential for learning a n d successful functioning in
the world? O u r primary goal is to weave a theoretical context
for thinking about mental health. A secondary goal is to create
an integrative framework for a v o l u m i n o u s literature in social
cognition concerning perceptions of the self a n d the environ-
ment.

M e n t a l H e a l t h as C o n t a c t W i t h R e a l i t y

Throughout psychological history, a variety of views of men-
tal health have been proffered, some idiosyncratic and others
widely shared. Within this theoretical diversity, a d o m i n a n t po-
sition has m a i n t a i n e d that the psychologically healthy person is
one who m a i n t a i n s close contact with reality. For example, i n
her distillation of the d o m i n a n t views of mental health at the
time, Jahoda (1958) noted that the majority of theories consid-
ered contact with reality to be a critical c o m p o n e n t of mental
health. This theme is p r o m i n e n t in the writings of Allport
(1943), Erikson (1950), Menninger (1930), a n d F r o m m (1955),
among others. For example, concerning his self-actualized indi-
viduals, Maslow (1950) wrote,

Our healthy individuals find it possible to accept themselves and
their own nature without chagrin or complaint . . . . They can ac-
cept their own human nature with all of its discrepancies from the
ideal image without feeling real concern. It would convey the wrong
impression to say that they are self-satisfied. What we must rather
say is that they can take the frailties and sins, weaknesses and evils
of human nature in the same unquestioning spirit that one takes
or accepts the characteristics of nature. (p. 54)

O n the basis of her review, Jahoda concluded,

The perception of reality is called mentally healthy when what the
individual sees corresponds to what is actually there. (1958, p. 6)

Mentally healthy perception means a process of viewing the world

193

194 SHELLEY E. TAYLOR AND JONATHON D. BROWN

so that one is able to take in matters one wishes were different with-
out distorting them to fit these wishes. (1953, p. 349)

Since J a h o d a ‘ s report, the position t h a t the mentally healthy
person perceives reality accurately has been put forth in m a j o r
works b y H a a n (1977) and Vaillant (1977), and it has also been
incorporated into textbooks on adjustment (e.g., J o u r a r d &
Landsman, 1980; Schulz, 1977). For example, after reviewing
a large n u m b e r o f theories o f the healthy personality, J o u r a r d
and L a n d s m a n (1980) noted, ” T h e ability to perceive reality as
it ‘really is’ is fundamental to effective functioning. It is consid-
ered one o f the two preconditions to the development o f [the
healthy personality]” (p. 75).

To summarize, then, although it is not the only theoretical
perspective on the mentally healthy person, the view that psy-
chological health depends on accurate perceptions o f reality has
been widely promulgated and widely shared in the literature on
mental health.

S o c i a l C o g n i t i o n , R e a l i t y , a n d I l l u s i o n

Early theorists in social cognition adopted a view o f the per-
son’s information-processing capabilities that is quite similar to
the viewpoint just described. These theorists maintained that
the social perceiver monitors and interacts with the world like a
naive scientist (see Fischhoff, 1976; Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Nis-
bett & Ross, 1980, for discussions). According to this view, the
person gathers data in an unbiased manner; combines it in some
logical, identifiable fashion; and reaches generally good, accu-
rate inferences and decisions. Theories o f the causal attribution
process (e.g., Kelley, 1967), prediction (see K a h n e m a n & Tver-
sky, 1973), judgments o f covariation, and other tasks o f social
inference (see Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Nisbett & Ross, 1980) in-
corporated the assumptions o f the naive scientist as normative
guidelines with which actual behavior could be compared.

It rapidly became evident, however, that the social perceiver’s
actual inferential work and decision making looked little like
these normative models. Rather, information processing is full
o f incomplete data gathering, shortcuts, errors, and biases (see
Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Nisbett & Ross, 1980, for reviews). In
particular, prior expectations and self-serving interpretations
weigh heavily into the social j u d g m e n t process. In summarizing
this work, Fiske and Taylor (1984) noted, ” I n s t e a d o f a naive
scientist entering the e n v i r o n m e n t in search o f the truth, we
find the rather unflattering picture o f a charlatan trying to m a k e
the data come out in a m a n n e r m o s t advantageous to his or her
already-held theories” (p. 88). T h e implications o f these con-
clusions for cognitive functioning have been widely debated and
discussed (see Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Greenwald, 1980; Nisbett
& Ross, 1980). But these findings also seem to have implications
for the understanding o f mental health, inasmuch as they ap-
pear to contradict a d o m i n a n t conception o f its attributes: H o w
can the normal, healthy individual perceive reality accurately i f
his or her perceptions are so evidently biased and self-serving?
Before considering this issue, a note concerning terminology is
required.

At this point, we exchange the t e r m s error and bias for a
broader term, illusion. There are several reasons for this change

in terminology. Error and bias imply short-term mistakes and
distortions, respectively, that might be caused b y careless over-
sight or other t e m p o r a r y negligences (cf. Funder, 1987). Illu-
sion, in contrast, implies a m o r e general, enduring pattern o f
error, bias, or both that assumes a particular direction or shape.
As the evidence will show, the illusions to be considered (unreal-
istically positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions o f
control, and unrealistic optimism) do indeed seem to be perva-
sive, enduring, and systematic. Illusion is defined as

a perception that represents what is perceived in a way different
from the way it is in reality. An illusion is a false mental image or
conception which may be a misinterpretation of a real appearance
or may be something imagined. It may be pleasing, harmless, or
even useful (Stein, 1982, p. 662).

The definition o f an illusion as a belief t h a t departs f r o m real-
ity presupposes an objective grasp o f reality. This point puts us
on the perilous b r i n k o f philosophical debate concerning
whether one can ever know reality. Fortunately, at least to some
degree, the methodologies o f social psychology spare us this
frustrating c o n u n d r u m b y providing operational definitions. In
some cases, evidence for illusions comes f r o m experimental
work that manipulates feedback provided to a person (e.g.,
whether the person succeeded or failed on a task) and measures
the individual’s perceptions or recall o f that feedback; this para-
digm can provide estimates o f an individual’s accuracy as well
as information about the direction (positive or negative) o f any
distortions. As will be seen, people typically distort such feed-
back in a self-serving manner. M o r e subjective self-evaluations
(e.g., how happy or well-adjusted one is) do n o t have these s a m e
objective standards o f comparison. In such cases, an illusion is
implied if the majority o f people r e p o r t that they are m o r e (or
less) likely than the majority o f people to hold a particular be-
lief. For example, if most people believe that they are happier,
better adjusted, and m o r e skilled on a variety o f tasks than m o s t
other people, such perceptions provide evidence suggestive o f
an illusion. Illusions about the future are operationally difficult
to establish because no one knows what the future will bring. I f
it can be shown, however, that m o s t people believe that their
future is m o r e positive than that o f most other people or m o r e
positive than objective baserate data can support, then evidence
suggestive o f illusions a b o u t the future is provided. We now turn
to the evidence for these illusions.

P o s i t i v e I l l u s i o n s a n d S o c i a l C o g n i t i o n

Any t a x o n o m y o f illusions is, to some extent, arbitrary. M a n y
researchers have studied biases in the processing o f self-relevant
information and have given their similar p h e n o m e n a different
names. There is, however, considerable overlap in findings, and
three that consistently emerge can be labeled unrealistically
positive views of the self, exaggerated perceptions of personal
control, and unrealistic optimism. Those familiar with the re-
search evidence will recognize that m u c h o f the evidence for
these positive illusions comes f r o m experimental studies and
from research with college students. We will have m o r e to say
about potential biases in the experimental literature later in this
article. At present, it is i m p o r t a n t to note that all three o f the

ILLUSION AND WELL-BEING 195

illusions to be discussed have been documented in noncollege
populations as well.

Unrealistically Positive Views o f the Self

As indicated earlier, a traditional conception o f mental health
asserts that the well-adjusted individual possesses a view o f the
self that includes an awareness and acceptance o f both the posi-
tive and negative aspects o f self. In contrast to this portrayal,
evidence indicates that most individuals possess a very positive
view o f the self(see Greenwald, 1980, for a review). When asked
to indicate how accurately positive and negative personality ad-
jectives describe the self, n o r m a l subjects judged positive traits
to be overwhelmingly more characteristic o f self than negative
attributes (Alicke, 1985; Brown, 1986). Additionally, for most
individuals, positive personality information is efficiently pro-
cessed and easily recalled, whereas negative personality infor-
mation is poorly processed and difficult to recall (Kuiper &
Derry, 1982; Kuiper & MacDonald, 1982; Kuiper, Olinger,
MacDonald, & Shaw, 1985). Most individuals also show poorer
recall for information related to failure than to success (Silver-
man, 1964) and tend to recall their task performance as more
positive than it actually was (Crary, 1966). Research on the self-
serving bias in causal attribution documents that most individ-
uals are more likely to attribute positive than negative outcomes
to the self(see Bradley, 1978; Miller & Ross, 1975; Ross & Flet-
cher, 1985; Zuckerman, 1979, for reviews)J

Even when negative aspects o f the self are acknowledged, they
tend to be dismissed as inconsequential. One’s poor abilities
tend to be perceived as c o m m o n , but one’s favored abilities are
seen as rare and distinctive (Campbell, 1986; G. Marks, 1984).
Furthermore, the things that people are not proficient at are
perceived as less i m p o r t a n t than the things that they are profi-
cient at (e.g., Campbell, 1986, Harackiewicz, Sansone, &
Mandedink, 1985; Lewicki, 1984; Rosenberg, 1979). And peo-
ple perceive that they have improved on abilities that are impor-
tant to them even when their performance has remained un-
changed (Conway & Ross, 1984).

I n sum, far from being balanced between the positive and
the negative, the perception o f self that most individuals hold is
heavily weighted toward the positive end o f the scale. O f course,
this imbalance does n o t in and o f itself provide evidence that
such views are unrealistic or illusory. Evidence o f this nature is,
however, available.

First, there exists a pervasive tendency to see the self as better
than others. Individuals judge positive personality attributes to
be more descriptive o f themselves than o f the average person
but see negative personality attributes as less descriptive o f
themselves than o f the average person (Alicke, 1985; Brown,
1986). This effect has been documented for a wide range o f
traits (Brown, 1986) and abilities (Campbell, 1986; L a r w o o d
& Whittaker, 1977); individuals even believe that their driving
ability is superior to others’ (Svenson, 1981). Because it is logi-
cally impossible for most people to be better than the average
person, these highly skewed, positive views o f the self can be
regarded as evidence for their unrealistic and illusory nature.
People also tend to use their positive qualities when appraising
others, thereby virtually assuring a favorable self-other com-

parison (Lewicki, 1983). A n d people give others less credit for
success and more blame for failure than they ascribe to them-
selves (Forsyth & Schlenker, 1977; Green & Gross, 1979, Mir-
els, 1980; Schlenker & Miller, 1977; Taylor & Koivumaki,
1976).

Although the tendency to see the self as better than others is
attenuated somewhat when the others being evaluated are close
friends or relatives (Brown, 1986), a corresponding tendency
exists for individuals to see their intimates as better than aver-
age. One’s friends are evaluated more positively and less nega-
tively than the average person (Brown, 1986), and, c o m p a r e d
with others, close friends and relatives receive more credit for
success and less blame for failure (Hall & Taylor, 1976; Taylor
& Koivumald, 1976). Moreover, these effects at the individual
level also occur at the group level: Research using the minimal
intergroup paradigm has established that even under the most
minimal o f social conditions, a pervasive tendency exists for in-
dividuals to see their own group as better than other groups (see
Tajfel & Turner, 1986, for a review). Thus, although research
demonstrates a general person-positivity bias (Schneider, Hast-
orf, & Ellsworth, 1979; Sears, 1983), individuals are inclined to
appraise themselves and their close associates in far more posi-
tive and less negative terms than they appraise most other
people.

A second source o f evidence pertaining t o the illusory quality
o f positive self-perceptions comes from investigations in which
self-ratings have been c o m p a r e d with judgments made b y ob-
servers. Lewinsohn, Mischel, Chaplin, and Barton (1980) had
observers watch college-student subjects complete a group-in-
teraction task. Observers then rated each subject along a n u m –
ber o f personality dimensions (e.g., friendly, warm, and asser-
tive). Subjects also rated themselves on each attribute. The re-
suits showed that self-ratings were significantly more positive
than the observers’ ratings. I n other words, individuals saw
themselves in more flattering terms than they were seen in b y
others.

I n sum, the perception o f self that most individuals hold is
not as well-balanced as traditional models o f mental health sug-
gest. Rather than being attentive to both the favorable and unfa-
vorable aspects o f self, normal individuals appear to be very
cognizant o f their strengths and assets and considerably less
aware o f their weaknesses and faults. Evidence that these flat-
tering self-portrayals are illusory comes from studies in which
researchers have found that (a) most individuals see themselves
as better than the average person and (b) most individuals see

Despite a general pattern indicating that people accept more respon-
sibility for positive outcomes than for negative outcomes, some evidence
suggests that people may exaggerate their own causal role in the occur-
rence of highly negative events (e.g., Bulman & Wortman, 1977; Janoff-
Buiman, 1979; Taylor, Lichtman, & Wood, 1984). These data might
appear to be at odds with a general pattern of self-serving attributions,
but they may not be. Self-attribution does not imply personal responsi-
bility or self-blame (Shaver & Drown, 1986) and therefore may not pro-
duce any blow to self-esteem. Moreover, some have suggested that self-
attribution may enable people to begin to achieve mastery over an ad-
verse event, helping to maintain a sense of personal control (Bulman &
Wortman, 1977; Taylor, 1983).

196 SHELLEY E. TAYLOR AND JONATHON D. BROWN

themselves as better than others see them. For these reasons,
overly positive views o f the self a p p e a r to be illusory. 2

Does there exist a group o f individuals that is accepting o f
both the good and the b a d aspects o f themselves as m a n y views
o f mental health m a i n t a i n the n o r m a l person is? Suggestive evi-
dence indicates that individuals who are low in self-esteem,
moderately depressed, or b o t h are m o r e balanced in self-per-
ceptions (see Coyne & Gotlieb, 1983; Ruehlman, West, & Pasa-
how, 1985; Watson & Clark, 1984, for reviews). These individu-
als tend to (a) recall positive and negative self-relevant informa-
tion with equal frequency (e.g., Kuiper & Derry, 1982; K u i p e r
& MacDonald, 1982), (b) show greater evenhandedness in their
attributions o f responsibility for valenced outcomes (e.g., C a m p –
bell & Fairey, 1985; Kuiper, 1978; Rizley, 1978), (c) display
greater congruence between self-evaluations and evaluations o f
others (e.g., Brown, 1986), and (d) offer self-appraisals that co-
incide m o r e closely with appraisals by objective observers (e.g.,
Lewinsohn et al., 1980). I n short, it appears to be not the well-
adjusted individual b u t the individual who experiences subjec-
tive distress w h o is m o r e likely to process self-relevant infor-
mation in a relatively unbiased and balanced fashion. These
findings are inconsistent with the notion that realistic and even-
handed perceptions o f self are characteristic o f mental health.

Illusions of Control

A second domain in which most individuals’ perceptions ap-
pear to be less than realistic concerns beliefs about personal
control over environmental occurrences. M a n y theorists, in-
cluding social psychologists (e.g., Heider, 1958), developmental
psychologists (e.g., White, 1959), learning theorists (Bandura,
1977; deCharms, 1968), and psychoanalytic theorists (Fenichel,
1945; Hendrick, 1942), have maintained that a sense o f per-
sonal control is integral to the self-concept and self-esteem. Re-
search evidence, however, suggests that people’s beliefs in per-
sonal control are sometimes greater than can be justified.

In a series o f studies adopting gambling formats, Langer and
her associates (Langer, 1975; Langer & Roth, 1975) found that
people often act as if they have control in situations that are
actually determined b y chance. W h e n manipulations suggestive
o f skill, such as competition, choice, familiarity, and involve-
ment, are introduced into chance situations, people behave as
i f the situations were determined b y skill and, thus, were ones
over which they could exert some control (see also Goffman,
1967). For example, people infer that they have greater control
if they personally throw dice than if someone else does it for
t h e m (Fleming & Darley, 1986; Langer, 1975). Similarly, a large
literature on covariation estimation indicates that people sub-
stantially overestimate their degree o f control over heavily
chance-determined events (see Crocker, 1982, for a review).
When people expect to produce a certain outcome and the out-
come then occurs, they often overestimate the degree to which
they were instrumental in bringing it about (see Miller & Ross,
1975).

Is there any group in which this illusion o f control appears to
be absent? Mildly and severely depressed individuals a p p e a r to
be less vulnerable to the illusion o f control (Abramson & Alloy,
1981; Golin, Terrell, & J o h n s o n , 1977; Golin, Terrell, Weitz, &

Drost, 1979; M. S. Greenberg & Alloy, in press). W h e n skill
cues are introduced into a chance-related task or when out-
comes occur as predicted, depressed individuals provide m o r e
accurate estimates o f their degree o f personal control t h a n do
nondepressed people. Similarly, relative to nondepressed peo-
ple, those in w h o m a negative m o o d has been induced show
m o r e realistic perceptions o f personal control (Alloy, A b r a m –
son, & Viscusi, 1981; see also Shrauger & Terbovic, 1976). This
is not to suggest that depressed people or those in w h o m a nega-
tive m o o d has been induced are always m o r e accurate than non-
depressed subjects in their estimates o f personal control (e.g.,
Abramson, Alloy, & Rosoff, 1981; Benassi & Mahler, 1985) b u t
that the preponderance o f evidence lies in this direction. Realis-
tic perceptions o f personal control thus a p p e a r to be m o r e char-
acteristic o f individuals in a depressed affective state than indi-
viduals in a nondepressed affective state.

Unrealistic Optimism

Research suggests that most people are future oriented. I n
one survey (Gonzales & Z i m b a r d o , 1985), the majority o f re-
spondents rated themselves as oriented toward the present and
the future (57%) or primarily toward the future (33%) rather
than toward the present only (9%) or toward the past (1%). Opti-
m i s m pervades people’s thinking a b o u t the future (Tiger, 1979).
Research suggests that m o s t people believe that the present is
better than the past and t h a t the future will be even better
(Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978). Questionnaires
that survey Americans about the future have found the majority
to be hopeful and confident that things can only i m p r o v e (Free
& Cantril, 1968). When asked what they thought was possible
for t h e m in the future, college students reported m o r e t h a n four
times as m a n y positive as negative possibilities (Markus & N u –
rius, 1986).

Is there any evidence, however, that such o p t i m i s m is actually
unrealistic? Although the future m a y well hold m o r e subjec-
tively positive events than negative ones for m o s t individuals, as
with excessively positive views o f the self, evidence for the illu-
sory nature o f o p t i m i s m comes f r o m studies c o m p a r i n g judg-
ments o f self with judgments o f others. T h e evidence indicates
that although the w a r m and generous vision o f the future t h a t
individuals entertain extends to all people, it is decidedly m o r e
in evidence for the self. People estimate the likelihood that they

2 One might argue that overly positive self-descriptions reflect public
posturing rather than privately held beliefs. Several factors, however,
argue against the plausibility of a strict self-presentational interpreta-
tion of this phenomenon. For example, Greenwald and Breckler (1985)
reviewed evidence indicating that (a) self-evaluations are at least as fa-
vorable under private conditions as they are under public conditions;
(b) favorable self-evaluations occur even when strong constraints to be
honest are present; (c) favorable self-referent judgments are made very
rapidly, suggesting that people are not engaging in deliberate (time-con-
suming) fabrication; and (d) self-enhancing judgments are acted on. For
these as well as other reasons, a consensus is emerging at the theoretical
level that individuals do not offer flattering self-evaluations merely as a
means of managing a public impression of competency (see Sehlenker,
1980; Tesser & Moore, 1986; Tetlock & Manstead, 1985).

ILLUSION A N D WELL-BEING 197

will experience a wide variety o f pleasant events, such as liking
their first job, getting a good salary, or having a gifted child, as
higher than those o f their peers (Weinstein, 1980). Conversely,
when asked their chances o f experiencing a wide variety o f neg-
ative events, including having an automobile accident (Robert-
son, 1977), being a crime victim (Perloff& Fetzer, 1986), having
trouble finding a job (Weinstein, 1980), or becoming ill (Perloff
& Fetzer, 1986) or depressed (Kuiper, MacDonald, & Derry,
1983), most people believe that they are less likely than their
peers to experience such negative events. In effect, most people
seem to be saying, “The future will be great, especially for me.”
Because not everyone’s future can be rosier than their peers’,
the extreme optimism that individuals display appears to be il-
lusory.

Other evidence also suggests that individuals hold unrealisti-
cally positive views o f the future. Over a wide variety of tasks,
subjects’ predictions of what will occur correspond closely to
what they would like to see happen or to what is socially desir-
able rather than to what is objectively likely (Cantril, 1938;
Lund, 1975; McGuire, 1960; Pruitt & Hoge, 1965; Sherman,
1980). Both children and adults overestimate the degree to
which they will do well on future tasks (e.g., Crandall, Solomon,
& Kelleway, 1955; Irwin, 1944, 1953; R. W. Marks, 1951), and
they are more likely to provide such overestimates the more
personally important the task is (Frank, 1953). Unrealistic opti-
mism has even been documented for events that are entirely
chance determined (Irwin, 1953; Langer & Roth, 1975; R. W.
Marks, 1951).

In contrast to the extremely positive view of the future dis-
played by normal individuals, mildly depressed people and
those with low self-esteem appear to entertain more balanced
assessments of their likely future circumstances (see Ruehlman
et al., 1985, for a review). Relative to judgments concerning oth-
ers, these individuals fail to exhibit the self-enhancing tendency
to see positive events as more likely for self and negative events
as less likely for self(Alloy & Ahrens, 1987; Brown, 1985; Pie-
tromonaco & Markus, 1985; Pyszczynski, Holt, & Greenberg,
1987). Thus, although in some cases such tendencies may reflect
pessimism on the part o f depressed people, it appears to be indi-
viduals who are high, not low, in subjective well-being who
evince more biased perceptions of the future.

S u m m a r y

To summarize, traditional conceptions of mental health as-
sert that well-adjusted individuals possess relatively accurate
perceptions o f themselves, their capacity to control important
events in their lives, and their future. In contrast to this por-
trayal, a great deal of research in social, personality, clinical,
and developmental psychology documents that normal individ-
uals possess unrealistically positive views o f themselves, an ex-
aggerated belief in their ability to control their environment,
and a view of the future that maintains that their future will be
far better than the average person’s. Furthermore, individuals
who are moderately depressed or low in self-esteem consistently
display an absence of such enhancing illusions. Together, these
findings appear inconsistent with the notion that accurate self-
knowledge is the hallmark o f mental health.

Two other literatures also suggest that accurate self-knowl-
edge may not always be positively related to psychological well-
being. Consider, first, research on the correlates of private self-
consciousness as assessed by the Self-Consciousness Scale (Fen-
igstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975). Private self-consciousness refers
to the degree to which a person characteristically attends to the
private, covert aspects of the self (e.g., ” I ‘ m always trying to
figure myself out”). People scoring high on this measure have
been shown to possess more detailed and accurate self-knowl-
edge than those who are less attentive to this aspect o f the self
(Franzoi, 1983; Turner, 1978). Additionally, researchers have
found that private self-consciousness is positively related to de-
pression (Ingram & Smith, 1984; Smith & Greenberg, 1981;
Smith, Ingram, & Roth, 1985). Although the relation between
these variables is correlational, experimental research also sug-
gests that under some circumstances focusing attention on the
self may engender negative emotional states (Duval &
Wicklund, 1972).

Additional support for the argument that accurate self-
knowledge may be negatively related to psychological health
comes from research on the correlates o f self-deception. Spe-
cifically, scores on the Self-Deception Questionnaire (Sackeim
& Gur, 1979), a measure o f the degree to which individuals typi-
cally deny psychologically threatening but universal feelings
and behaviors (e.g., ” D o you ever feel guilty?”), have been found
to be inversely related to depression (Roth & Ingram, 1985; see
Sackeim, 1983, for a review). The fact that individuals who are
most apt to engage in self-deception also score lowest on mea-
sures o f psychopathology further suggests that accurate self-
knowledge may not be a sine qua non o f mental health.

M e n t a l – H e a l t h – P r o m o t i n g A s p e c t s o f Illusion

It is one thing to say that positive illusions about the self, per-
sonal control, and the future exist and are true for normal peo-
ple. It is another to identify how these illusions contribute to
mental health. To do so, one first needs to establish criteria o f
mental health and then determine whether the consequences of
the preceding positive illusions fit those criteria. One dilemma
that immediately arises is that, as noted earlier, many formal
definitions o f mental health incorporate accurate self-percep-
tions as one criterion (see Jahoda, 1958; Jourard & Landsman,
1980). In establishing criteria for mental health, then, we must
subtract this particular one.

When we do so, what is left? The ability to be happy or, at
least, relatively contented, has been one central criterion of
mental health and well-being adopted by a variety of researchers
and theorists (e.g., Menninger, 1930; see E. Diener, 1984; Ja-
hoda, 1958 for reviews). In her landmark work, Jahoda (1958)
identified five additional criteria o f positive mental health: posi-
tive attitudes toward the self; the ability to grow, develop, and
self-actualize; autonomy; environmental mastery in work and
social relationships; and integration (i.e., the balance o f psychic
forces of the id, ego, and superego). Reviewing both older and
more recent formulations, Jourard and Landsman (1980, p.
131) distilled very similar criteria: positive self-regard, the abil-
ity to care about others and for the natural world, openness to
new ideas and to people, creativity, the ability to do productive

198 SHELLEY E. TAYLOR A N D JONATHON D. BROWN

work, the ability to love, and the ubiquitous realistic self-percep-
tions. Because positive self-regard has already been considered
in our section on exaggeratedly positive self-perceptions, we will
not review it here. Thus, the common elements in these criteria
that we examine in the next section are happiness or content-
ment, the ability to care for and about others, and the capacity
for productive and creative work.

Happiness or Contentment
Most people report being happy most of the time. In surveys

of mood, 70% to 80% of respondents report that they are mod-
erately to very happy. Whereas most respondents believe that
others are average in happiness, 60% believe that they are hap-
pier than most people (Freedman, 1978). Positive illusions have
been tied to reports o f happiness. People who have high self-
esteem and self-confidence, who report that they have a lot of
control in their lives, and who believe that the future will bring
them happiness are more likely than people who lack these per-
ceptions to indicate that they are happy at the present (Freed-
man, 1978).

As alluded to earlier, when the perceptions of happy people
are compared with those o f people who are relatively more dis-
tressed, happy people have higher opinions of themselves (e.g.,
Beck, 1967; Kuiper & Derry, 1982; Kuiper & MacDonald,
1982; Kuiper et al., 1985; Lewinsohn et al., 1980; see Shrauger
& Terbovic, 1976), are more likely to evince self-serving causal
attributions (Kuiper, 1978; Rizley, 1978), show exaggerated be-
liefs in their ability to control what goes on around them (Ab-
ramson & Alloy, 1981; Golin et al., 1977; Golin et al., 1979;
M. S. Greenberg & Alloy, in press), and are more likely to be
unrealistically optimistic (Alloy & Ahrens, 1987).

The association between illusions and positive mood appears
to be a consistent one, but the evidence is largely correlational
rather than causal. Some evidence that illusions directly influ-
ence mood has, however, been reported. For example, we noted
earlier that individuals are more inclined to attribute success
than failure to the self. MacFarland and Ross (1982) tested
whether such a self-serving pattern promotes positive mood
states. These investigators had subjects perform a laboratory
task in which they manipulated success and failure. Some sub-
jects were led to attribute success (failure) to the self, whereas
other subjects were led to attribute success (failure) to the task.
Mood measures were then gathered. In line with the hypothesis
that the self-serving attributional bias causally influences posi-
tive mood states, subjects led to attribute success to the self and
failure to the task reported more positive mood after success
and less negative mood after failure. More recently, Gibbons
(1986) found evidence that another self-enhancing illusionm
the tendency to see the self as better off than others–also im-
proves mood states among depressed people. Thus, although
these investigations do not rule out the possibility that positive
mood may also cause illusions, that is, that these variables may
be reciprocally related (Brown, 1984; Brown & Taylor, 1986),
they do provide evidence that illusions promote happiness.

Ability to Care for Others
The ability to care for others has been considered an impor-

tant criterion o f mental health, and evidence suggests that posi-

tive illusions are associated with certain aspects o f social bond-
ing. For example, research with children indicates that high
self-evaluations are linked to both perceived and actual popu-
larity among peers (Bohrnstedt & Felson, 1983; Felson, 1981).
Optimism may also improve social functioning. One study
found that people with high self-esteem and an optimistic view
of the future were better able to cope with loneliness at college
than were individuals who displayed an absence of these tenden-
cies (Cutrona, 1982).

Illusions may also affect the ability to care for and about oth-
ers indirectly by means o f their capacity to create positive
mood. Research indicates that when a positive (as opposed to
negative or neutral) mood has been induced, people are gener-
ally more likely to help others (e.g., Batson, Coke, Chard,
Smith, & Taliaferro, 1979; Cialdini, Kenrick, & Baumann,
1982; Moore, Underwood, & Rosenhan, 1973), to initiate con-
versations with others (Batson et al., 1979; Isen, 1970), to ex-
press liking for others and positive evaluations o f people in gen-
eral (Gouaux, 1971; Griffith, 1970; Veitch & Griflitt, 1976), and
to reduce the use of contentious strategies and increase joint
benefit in bargaining situations (Carnevale & Isen, 1986). Sum-
marizing the research evidence, Isen (1984) concluded, “Posi-
tive affect is associated with increased sociability and benevo-
lence” (p. 189; see also E. Diener, 1984).

Overall, then, there is evidence associating positive illusions
with certain aspects o f social bonding. This relation may also
be facilitated indirectly by means of positive mood.

Capacity for Creative, Productive Work

Positive illusions may promote the capacity for creative, pro-
ductive work in two ways: First, these illusions may facilitate
intellectually creative functioning itself; second, they enhance
motivation, persistence, and performance.

Facilitation of intellectual functioning. The evidence for di-
rect effects o f positive illusions on intellective functioning is
sparse. Whether unrealistic optimism or exaggerated beliefs in
personal control affect intellectual functioning directly is un-
known. There may, however, be intellectual benefits to self-en-
hancement. Memory tends to be organized egocentrically, such
that people are able to recall self-relevant information well.
Greenwald (1980) suggested that there are cognitive benefits to
an egocentrically organized memory: The self as a well-known,
highly complex, densely organized system allows for rapid re-
trieval of information and extensive links among elements in
the system. As yet, it is unclear, however, whether self-enhance-
ment biases directly facilitate egocentrically organized
memory.

Positive illusions may also facilitate some aspects o f intellec-
tual functioning by means o f positive mood, although this pos-
sibility has not been tested directly. Positive affect is an effective
retrieval cue, especially for positive information (e.g., Isen,
Shalker, Clark, & Karp, 1978); positive affect can facilitate the
use o f efficient, rapid problem-solving strategies (Isen & Means,
1983); positive affect appears to facilitate the association o f
multiple cues with encoded information, thus creating a more
cognitively complex mental environment for making judg-
ments and decisions (Isen & Daubman, 1984); and positive

ILLUSION AND WELL-BEING 199

affect facilitates unusual and diverse associations that may pro-
duce more creative problem solving (Isen, Daubman, & Now-
icki, 1987; Isen, Johnson, Mertz, & Robinson, 1985).

Is the impact o f positive affect on mental functioning always
positive? Some research suggests that positive affect may lead
people to use simple, rapid, problem-solving strategies that may
be inappropriate for complex decision-making tasks (Isen et al.,
1985). More recent work (Isen et al., 1987), however, suggests
that positive affect does not reduce cognitive capacity or lead to
lazy or inefficient problem solving. Thus, positive affect appears
to have a largely positive impact on intellectual functioning.

Motivation, persistence, and performance. Self-enhancing
perceptions, a belief in personal control, and optimism appear
to foster motivation, persistence at tasks, and ultimately, more
effective performance.

Evidence for the impact o f self-enhancing perceptions on mo-
tivation, persistence, and performance comes from several
sources. Positive conceptions o f the self are associated with
working harder and longer on tasks (Felson, 1984); persever-
ance, in turn, produces more effective performance and a
greater likelihood o f goal attainment (Bandura, 1977; Baumeis-
ter, Hamilton, & Tice, 1985; see also Feather, 1966, 1968,
1969). People with high, as compared to low, self-esteem also
evaluate their performance more positively (Vasta & Brockner,
1979), even when it is equivalent to that o f low-self-esteem peo-
ple (Shrauger & Terbovic, 1976). These perceptions then feed
back into enhanced motivation. People with high self-esteem
have higher estimations o f their ability for future performance
and higher predictions o f future performance, even when prior
performance on the task would counterindicate those positive
estimations (McFarlin & Blascovich, 1981).

Evidence relating beliefs in personal control to motivation,
persistence, and performance comes from a variety o f sources.
Research on motivation has demonstrated repeatedly that be-
liefs in personal efficacy (a concept akin to control) are associ-
ated with higher motivation and more efforts to succeed (Band-
ura, 1977; see also Brunstein & Olbrich, 1985; Dweck & Licht,
1980). In a series o f studies, Burger (1985) found that individu-
als high in the desire for control responded more vigorously to
a challenging task and persisted longer. They also had higher
(and, in this case, more realistic) levels o f aspiration and higher
expectations for their performance than did individuals low in
desire for control.

Individual-difference research on mastery also indicates the
value o f believing that one has control. C. I. Diener and Dweck
(1978, 1980) found differences between mastery-oriented and
helpless children in their interpretations o f success and failure.
Even when their performance was equivalent to that o f helpless
children, mastery-oriented children (i.e., those with a sense o f
control over the task) remembered their success better, were
more likely to see success as indicative o f ability, expected suc-
cesses in the future, and were less daunted by failure. Following
failure, mastery-oriented children chose to focus on ways to
overcome the failure. In fact, they seemed not to recognize that
they had failed (C. I. Diener & Dweck, 1978).

Several lines o f research suggest that optimism is associated
with enhanced motivation and performance. High expectations
o f success p r o m p t people to work longer and harder on tasks

than do low expectations o f success (Atkinson, 1964; Mischel,
1973; Weiner, 1979). Gonzales and Zimbardo (1985) found that
a self-reported orientation toward the future was associated
with self-reports o f higher income, higher motivation to work,
more goal seeking, more pragmatic action, more daily plan-
ning, and less fatalism. Indirect evidence for the relation o f opti-
mism to effort, perseverance, and ultimately, goal attainment
comes from studies o f depression and studies o f learned help-
lessness. Beck (1967) maintained that pessimism is one o f the
central attributes o f depression, 3 and it is also prominent in
learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975). One o f the chief symp-
toms o f depression is inactivity, and researchers in learned help-
lessness have also noted the centrality o f generalized deficits o f
motivation in this syndrome (Seligman, 1975). Negative mood,
then, depresses activity level, perhaps because it facilitates see-
ing the negative consequences attached to any action. This pes-
simism may then reduce motivation and consequent activity to-
ward a goal.

Overall, then, research evidence indicates that self-enhance-
ment, exaggerated beliefs in control, and unrealistic optimism
can be associated with higher motivation, greater persistence,
more effective performance, and ultimately, greater success. A
chief value o f these illusions may be that they can create self-
fulfilling prophecies. They may help people try harder in situa-
tions with objectively poor probabilities o f success; although
some failure is inevitable, ultimately these illusions will pay off
more often than will lack o f persistence (cf. Greenwald, 1980). 4

3 Positive mood provides a potential secondary route whereby illu-
sions may foster motivation and persistence. Manipulated positive
mood enhances perceived probability of success and the tendency to
attribute success to personal stable factors (Brown, 1984). By way of
perpetuating the cycle of positive mood-perseverance-success, people
in a naturally occurring or experimentally induced positive mood are
also more likely to believe that they have succeeded and to reward them-
selves accordingly (Mischel, Coates, & Raskoff, 1968; Wright & Mis-
chel, 1982). Their performance also increases more in response to in-
creases in incentives than does that of people in a negative mood
(Weinstein, 1982). Manipulated negative mood is associated with lower
expectations for future success, with attributions of success to unstable
factors (Brown, 1984), and with less self-reward (Mischel et al., 1968;
Wright & Mischel, 1982). Motivation and positive mood appear to in-
fluence each other reciprocally: Involvement in activity elevates mood,
and elevated mood increases involvement in activity (E. Diener, 1984).
Overall, the links between being happy and being active are so well-
established that one of our earliest psychologists, Aristotle, maintained
that happiness is a by-product of human activity (Freedman, 1978).

4 We have assumed that the relation between illusions and persistence
generally results in positive outcomes. Perseverance may sometimes be
maladaptive, however, as when an individual persists endlessly at a task
that is truly intractable (see Janoff-Bulman & Brickman, 1982). Al-
though some evidence (e.g., McFarlin, Baumeister, & Blascovich, 1984)
suggests that such nonproductive perseverance may be most prevalent
among people with high self-esteem (i.e., those who are most apt to
display self-enhancing illusions), other studies (e.g., Baumeister & Tice,
1985; McFarlin, 1985) suggest that people with high self-esteem may be
most apt to desist from persisting endlessly at an unsolvable task when
they are given the opportunity to do so. Thus, the nature of the relation
between unproductive persistence and self-enhancing illusions is un-
clear and needs further empirical clarification.

200 SHELLEY E. TAYLOR AND JONATHON D. BROWN

Summary and Implications

To summarize, we return to the criteria of mental health
offered earlier and relate them systematically to positive illu-
sions. Those criteria include happiness or contentment, caring
for and about others, and the capacity for creative, productive
work. Although research does not systematically address the
role o f each of the three positive illusions with respect to each
criterion o f mental health, the evidence is suggestive in all cases.
Happy people are more likely to have positive conceptions o f
themselves, a belief in their ability to control what goes on
around them, and optimism about the future. They also typi-
cally have high self-esteem. The ability to care for others ap-
pears to be associated with positive illusions in that illusions are
associated with certain aspects of social bonding. The capacity
for creative, productive work is fostered both by enhanced intel-
lectual functioning, which may be an outgrowth of positive illu-
sions, and by the increased motivation, activity level, and persis-
tence that are clearly fostered by a positive sense of self, a sense
o f control, and optimism.

A c c o m m o d a t i n g Illusions t o Reality

The previous analysis presents some theoretical and practical
dilemmas. On the one hand, we have an established view of
mental health coming largely from the fields o f psychiatry and
clinical psychology that stresses the importance of accurate per-
ceptions of the self, one’s circumstances, and the future. On the
other hand, we have a sharply different portrait from cognitive
and social psychology of the normal individual as one who evi-
dences substantial biases in these perceptions. Moreover, these
biases fall in a predictable direction, namely, a positive one.
How are we to reconcile these viewpoints?

A second dilemma concerns the functional value o f illusions.
On the one hand, positive illusions appear to be common and,
more important, appear to be associated with positive out-
comes that promote good mental health. On the other hand,
this evidence flies in the face o f much clinical wisdom as well as
commonsense notions that people must monitor reality accu-
rately to survive. Thus, it is important to consider how positive
illusions can be maintained and, more important, can be func-
tional in the face o f realistic and often contradictory evidence
from the environment.

Reconciling Contradictory Views of Mental Health

In addressing the first dilemma, a useful point of departure
in a reconciliation is to examine the potential flaws in the data-
gathering methods o f the relevant clinical and social psychologi-
cal literatures in deriving their respective portraits. Historically,
clinical constructions of mental health have been dominated by
therapy with and research on abnormal people. Many psycholo-
gists and psychiatrists who have written about mental health
devote their research and clinical endeavors to individuals
whose perceptions are disturbed in a variety of ways. How
might an understanding o f mental health be influenced when
abnormality is an implicit yardstick? Contrasts between patho-
logical and normal functioning are likely to loom large. Because

an attribute of many psychologically disturbed people is an in-
ability to monitor reality effectively, the healthy individual may
be portrayed as one who maintains very close contact with real-
ity. More subtle deviations in perceptions and cognitions from
objectively accurate standards may well go unnoticed.

But just as a strict clinical view of mental health may result in
an overemphasis on rationality, a view o f mental health derived
solely from social cognition research may be skewed to reveal
an overemphasis on illusions. Much research in social cognition
extricates individuals from the normal settings in which they
interact for the purpose o f providing them with experimentally
manipulated information and feedback. Yet social and cogni-
tive research on the prevalence and usefulness o f schemata
makes clear that people rely heavily on their prior expectations
for processing incoming data (see Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Hastie,
1981; Taylor & Crocker, 1981, for reviews). To the extent that
manipulated information and feedback are similar to the infor-
mation and feedback that people normally encounter in their
chosen environments, one might expect to see perceptions sim-
ilar to those that people usually develop in their normal world.
However, to the extent that the information and feedback that
are provided experimentally deviate from the usual informa-
tion and feedback that an individual might encounter in the real
world, the implications of any errors and biases in perception
and cognition are unclear. Within social cognition, these exper-
imentally documented errors and biases are often interpreted as
evidence for flaws in human information-processing strategies.
Another interpretation, however, is at least as tenable. Individu-
als may merely assimilate unfamiliar or unexpected data to
their prior beliefs with relatively little processing at all. I f prior
beliefs include generally positive views o f the self, personal
efficacy, and the future, then interpretation o f any negative feed-
back may appear, falsely, to be error prone in a positive direc-
tion.

Taking these respective flaws o f the social and clinical por-
traits into account, what kind o f reconciliation can we develop?
First, a certain degree o f contact with reality seems to be essen-
tial to accomplish the tasks o f everyday life. I f the errors and
biases identified by social cognition dominated all inferential
tasks, it would be difficult to understand how the human organ-
ism could learn. On the other hand, it is also evident that when
errors and biases do occur, they are not evenly distributed. They
consistently stray in a positive direction, toward the aggrandize-
ment of the self and the world in which one must function. The
key to an integration o f the two views o f mental health may,
then, lie in understanding those circumstances under which
positive illusions about the self and the world may be most obvi-
ous and useful. The nature o f these circumstances is suggested
both by social cognition research itself and by research on vic-
tims o f misfortune.

I f one assumes either that people’s prior beliefs about them-
selves, their efficacy, and their future are positive or that their
information-processing strategies bias them to interpret infor-
mation in this way, then it follows that errors and biases will be
most obvious when feedback from the real world is negative. In
fact, in experimental circumstances examining positive biases,
research reveals that positive biases are more apparent as
threats to the self increase (Greenwald, 1981). The importance

ILLUSION AND WELL-BEING 201

of information may also alter the prevalence of positive biases.
Greenwald (1981) found self-enhancing biases to be more in
evidence as the importance of the situation increased. Thus, for
example, the self-serving causal attribution bias is more likely
to occur for behaviors that are important to an individual than
for personally trivial events (e.g., Miller, 1976).

Consistent with both points, research with victims o f misfor-
tune, such as cancer patients, suggests that illusions about the
self, one’s efficacy, and the future are in evidence in dealing with
these potentially tragic events (Taylor, 1983). For example, a
study of patients with breast cancer found that the belief that
one’s coping abilities were extraordinary (Wood, Taylor, &
Lichtman, 1985) and the belief that one could personally pre-
vent the cancer from coming back, even in the face of a likely
recurrence, were quite common (Taylor, Lichtman, & Wood,
1984). More to the point, they were associated with successful
psychological adjustment to the cancer.

In a recent review of the literature on personality factors as
buffers of the stress-disorder relation, Cohen and Edwards (in
press) found only scattered evidence for stress-buffering effects
across a large number o f personality variables; they suggested
that this may occur because only a few superordinate mecha-
nisms actually buffer stress successfully. Significantly, they
offered as possible superordinate mechanisms feelings of per-
sonal control, self-efficacy or self-esteem, optimism, and effort
or ability. At present, the evidence is strongest for sense o f per-
sonal control. Their analysis provides converging evidence for
the potential functional value of self-enhancement, personal
control, optimism, and their concomitants under conditions o f
threat. Becker (1973) made a related point in his Pulitzer-Prize-
winning book, The Denial of Death. He argued that because
the world is an uncertain and frightening place to live in, people
create positive, life-affirming illusions to enable them to cope
with their existential terror (cf. J. Greenberg, Pyszczynski, &
Solomon, 1986).

To summarize then, evidence from converging sources sug-
gests that positive illusions about the self, one’s control, and the
future may be especially apparent and adaptive under circum-
stances o f adversity, that is, circumstances that might be ex-
pected to produce depression or lack of motivation. Under these
circumstances, the belief in one’s self as a competent, effica-
cious actor behaving in a world with a generally positive future
may be especially helpful in overcoming setbacks, potential
blows to self-esteem, and potential erosions in one’s view of the
future.

Management of Negative Feedback

I f illusions are particularly functional when a person encoun-
ters negative feedback, we must consider, first, how the process
o f rejecting versus accommodating negative feedback occurs
and, second, how people negotiate the world successfully and
learn from experience without the full benefit of negative feed-
back. To anticipate the forthcoming argument, we maintain
that a series of social and cognitive filters make information dis-
proportionately positive and that the negative information that
escapes these filters is represented in as unthreatening a manner
as possible.

Social construction of social feedback. A variety of social
norms and strategies of social interaction conspire to protect
the individual from the harsher side o f reality. Research indi-
cates that, although people are generally unwilling to give feed-
back (Blumberg, 1972), when it is given, it is overwhelmingly
likely to be positive (Blumberg, 1972; Parducci, 1968; Tesser
& Rosen, 1975). Evaluators who must communicate negative
feedback may mute it or put it in euphemistic terms (Goffman,
1955), thus rendering it ambiguous. In a similar vein, studies
of opinion moderation (Cialdini, Levy, Herman, & Evenbeck,
1973; McGuire, 1985; M, Snyder & S w a n n , 1976; Tetlock,
1983) reveal that when people expect that others will disagree
with them, they often moderate their opinions in advance to be
less extreme and thereby more similar to what they perceive to
be the attitudes of their audience. I f a person holds negative be-
liefs about another, he or she is highly likely to discontinue inter-
action with the person, rather than communicate the negative
feedback (Darley & Fazio, 1980). Implicitly, then, people collec-
tively subscribe to norms, ensuring that they both give and re-
ceive predominantly positive feedback (see also Goffman,
1955).

The interaction strategies that people adopt in social situa-
tions also tend to confirm preexisting self-conceptions (see
Swann, 1983, 1984, for reviews). People implicitly signal how
they want to be treated by adopting physical identity cues (such
as clothing or buttons that express political beliefs), by taking
on social roles that communicate their self-perceptions (such as
mother or radical), and by using methods of communication
that preferentially solicit self-confirming feedback (Swann,
1983). In this last category, people actively seek to disconfirm
others’ mistaken impressions o f them (Swann& Hill, 1982) and
are more likely to seek social feedback if they believe it will
confirm their self-conceptions (Swann & Read, 198 la, 198 lb).
Because most individuals have favorable self-views, such strate-
gies lead to a tendency to seek feedback primarily when feed-
back is likely to be positive (Brown, 1987).

The construction of social relationships with friends and inti-
mates also facilitates positive self-impressions. People select
friends and intimates who are relatively similar to themselves
on physical resources, nearly equal on ability and achievement,
similar in attitudes, and similar in background characteristics
(Eckland, 1968; Hill, Rubin, & Peplau, 1976; Richardson,
1939; Spuhler, 1968; see Swann, 1984, for a review). This selec-
tion process reinforces one’s beliefs that one’s attitudes and at-
tributes are correct. People form relationships with people who
see them as they see themselves (Secord & Backman, 1965;
Swarm, 1983) and tend to be unhappy in relationships in which
they are not seen as they want to be seen (Laing, Phillipson,
& Lee, 1966). Tesser and his associates (Tesser, 1980; Tesser &
Campbell, 1980; Tesser, Campbell, & Smith, 1984; Tesser &
Paulhus, 1983) have suggested that people select friends whose
abilities on tasks central to the self are somewhat inferior to
their own but whose abilities on tasks less relevant to the self
are the same or superior. In this way, individuals can achieve the
best of both worlds: They can value their friends for exceptional
qualities irrelevant to the self (thereby enhancing the self by
means o f association) without detracting from their own posi-
tive self-evaluations.

202 SHELLEY E. TAYLOR AND JONATHON D. BROWN

Some negative feedback, such as losing a job or being aban-
doned by a spouse, is difficult to rebut, and under such circum-
stances, one’s friends and family may help in the esteem-restor-
ing process by selectively focusing on one’s positive qualities,
on the positive aspects o f the unpleasant situation, and on the
negative aspects o f the former situation. In analyses of the social
support process, researchers have uniformly regarded the main-
tenance of self-esteem as a major benefit o f social support (e.g.,
Cobb, 1976; House, 1981; Pinneau, 1975; Schaefer, Coyne, &
Lazarus, 1981), and research indicates that social support
buffers people from physical and emotional distress during peri-
ods o f high stress (Cobb, 1976; Cohen & Hoberman, 1983; Co-
hen & McKay, 1983; Kaplan, Cassel, & Gore, 1977; LaRoeco,
House, & French, 1980). Experimental studies are consistent
with this conclusion (e.g., Backman, Seeord, & Peirce, 1963;
Swann& Predmore, 1985) by showing that friends’ agreement
on one’s personal attributes can act as a buffer against discon-
firming feedback.

Overall, then, norms and strategies o f social interaction gen-
erally enhance positive self-evaluations and protect against neg-
ative ones. One caveat, however, deserves mention. A consider-
able amount o f the research cited demonstrates that people so-
licit and receive self-confirming feedback, not necessarily
positive feedback. For example, a woman who thinks of herself
as shy may seek and receive feedback that she is (see Swarm,
1983). At first, these results may seem contradictory with the
position that social feedback fosters positive self-conceptions,
but in fact, they are not. Because most people think well of
themselves on most attributes, confirming feedback is typically
positive feedback.

Biases in encoding, interpretation, and retrieval Social inter-
action itself, then, is one filter that biases the information an
individual receives in a positive direction. Another set of filters
is engaged as the cognitive system encodes, interprets, or re-
trieves information. People generally select, interpret, and recall
information to be consistent with their prior beliefs or theories
(see Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Greenwald, 1980; Taylor & Crocker,
1981, for reviews), s Consequently, if a person’s prior beliefs are
positive, cognitive biases that favor conservatism generally will
maintain positive illusions more specifically.

Some potentially contradictory information never gets into
the cognitive system. Preexisting theories strongly guide the per-
ception o f information as relevant (Howard & Rothbart, 1980;
Rothbart, Evans, & Fulero, 1979; see Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Nis-
bett & Ross, 1980). Ambiguous information tends to be inter-
preted as consistent with prior beliefs (see Taylor & Crocker,
1981, for a review); thus, a behavior that is neither clearly a
success nor clearly a failure is likely to be seen as positive by
most individuals. In particular, ambiguous feedback from oth-
ers may be perceived as more favorable than it really is (Jacobs,
Berscheid, & Walster, 1971).

I f feedback is not positive, it may simply be ignored. In their
review of approximately 50 studies, Shrauger and Schoeneman
(1979) examined the evidence relating self-perceptions to eval-
uations by significant others in natural settings. They found lit-
tle evidence that self-evaluations are consistently influenced by
others’ feedback, nor did they find evidence o f congruence be-
tween self-perceptions and evaluations by others (see also Sh-

rauger, 1982). They did, however, find substantial evidence that
people’s views o f themselves and their perceptions o f others’
evaluations of them were correlated. People who thought well o f
themselves believed that they were well-thought-of, and people
who thought poorly o f themselves believed that others did as
well (see also Schafer & Keith, 1985).

Interpretational biases also mute the impact o f incoming in-
formation. Generally speaking, discrepant self-relevant feed-
back is more likely to be perceived as inaccurate or uninforma-
tive than is feedback that is consistent with the self (Markus,
1977; S w a n n & Read, 1981a, 1981b). It is scrutinized more
closely than is confirmatory information in terms o f the evalua-
tot’s motives and credibility, with the result that it is likely to
be discounted (Halperin, Snyder, Shenkel, & Houston, 1976;
Shavit & Shouval, 1980; Shrauger, 1982). One manifestation
of this tendency is that, because self-perceptions are generally
positive, negative feedback is seen as less credible than positive
feedback (C. R. Snyder, Shenkel, & Lowery, 1977), especially
by people with high self-esteem (Shrauger & Kelly, 1981;
Shrauger & Rosenberg, 1970; see Shrauger, 1975, for a review).
When all else fails, discrepant behaviors may be explained away
by excuses that offer situational explanations for the behavior
(C. R. Snyder, Higgins, & Stucky, 1983). In those cases in which
personal responsibility for failure cannot be denied, one can
maintain that the attributes on which one is successful are im-
portant, whereas the attributes on which one fails are not (e.g.,
Tesser & Paulhus, 1983).

Finally, information that is consistent with a prior theory is,
generally speaking, more likely to be recalled (e.g., Anderson &
Pichert, 1978; Owens, Bower, & Black, 1979; Zadny & Gerard,
1974). People are better able to remember information that fits
their self-conceptions than information that contradicts their
self-conceptions (see Shrauger, 1982; Silverman, 1964; Suinn,
Osborne, & Page, 1962; Swann, 1984; S w a n n & Read, 1981a,
198 lb, for reviews). When social feedback is mixed in its im-
plications for the self, people preferentially recall what confirms
their self-conceptions (Swann & Read, 1981a, 1981b). Typi-
cally, these self-conceptions are positive.

Cognitive drift. I f negative or otherwise contradictory infor-
mation succeeds in surmounting the social and cognitive filters
just described, its effects may still be only temporary. Research
demonstrates that beliefs may change radically in response to
temporary conditions and then drift back again to their original
state (e.g., Walster & Berscheid, 1968). This characteristic, cog-
nitive drift, can act as another method of absorbing negative
feedback. For example, a dramatic change in self-perception
may occur following a negative experience, such as failing a test
or being accused of insensitivity by a friend. But, with time,
any single encounter with negative feedback may fade into the
context of other so-called evidence bolstering positive self-con-
ceptions (cf. Swarm, 1983).

Some direct evidence for cognitive drift exists in the literature

5 Hastie and Kumar (1979) and others (see Higgins & Bargh, 1987,
for a review) have found that under certain circumstances, inconsistent
information is better recalled than consistent information. This finding
appears to occur primarily under impression-formation conditions,
however, which are unlikely to characterize self-inference.

ILLUSION AND WELL-BEING 2 0 3

on self-serving attributions. In a series o f experiments, Burger
and Huntzinger (1985) found that initially modest attributions
for successful and failed performance b e c a m e m o r e self-serving
over time. Similarly, in research on attributions for joint perfor-
mance, Burger and R o d m a n (1983, Experiment 2) found that
people gave a p a r t n e r m o r e credit than the self for a j o i n t task
immediately following the task (an attribution that may have
considerable social value) b u t later gave themselves m o r e credit
for the j o i n t product, as the self-centered bias predicts. Markus
and Nurius (1986) m a d e a similar point in noting that the work-
ing self-concept is highly responsive to the social environment,
whereas the stable self-concept is m o r e robust and less reactive.
Cognitive drift, then, is a conservative mechanism that can pro-
tect against change in the cognitive system. To the extent that
beliefs about one’s self and the e n v i r o n m e n t are positive, cogni-
tive drift also maintains positive self-conceptions.

Acknowledged pockets of incompetence. Certain kinds o f
negative feedback recur repeatedly and, therefore, elude the so-
cial and cognitive filters just described. Presumably, this nega-
tive information has validity and therefore must be dealt with in
some way t h a t acknowledges its existence without undermining
generally positive conceptions o f the self and the world. One
such m e t h o d is accepting a limitation in order to avoid situa-
tions that would require it. In essence, one creates an acknowl-
edged pocket o f incompetence. Each person m a y have a few ar-
eas o f life (e.g., finances, tennis, artistic or musical ability, fash-
ion sense, or ability to dance) in which he or she readily
acknowledges a hopeless lack o f talent. People m a y relegate
such behaviors to others and avoid getting themselves into cir-
cumstances in which their talents would be tested.

We know o f no research that directly addresses these ac-
knowledged pockets o f incompetence, b u t we venture a few
speculations on their attributes. First, one might expect that
people actually exaggerate their incompetence in these areas to
justify their total avoidance o f and nonparticipation in the ac-
tivities. Second, people m a y a d m i t to these incompetencies, in
part, to lend credibility to their positive self-assessments in
other areas. Third, to protect self-esteem, people may down-
grade the i m p o r t a n c e or significance o f the domains in which
they lack skill. For this last point, there is considerable support-
ive evidence (e.g., Campbell, 1986; Harackiewicz, Manderlink,
& Sansone, 1984; Lewicki, 1984, 1985; Rosenberg, 1979).

Despite the absence o f research on them, psychological the-
ory provides a m p l e mechanisms whereby such pockets o f in-
competence might develop. Punishment, in which a behavior is
followed by a noxious stimulus, leads to avoidance, and perfor-
m a n c e declines in t h a t d o m a i n in the future (Hilgard & Bower,
1966). “Helplessness training,” in which one’s efforts to control
repeatedly come to naught, produces affective, cognitive, and
motivational deficits in b o t h the initial situation in which help-
lessness occurred and in similar situations, i.e., learned help-
lessness (Seligman, 1975). Avoidance o f a task or its consistent
delegation to another person m a y act as cues that lead one to
assume that one is not good at something, an example o f what
Langer and Benevento (1978) called self-induced dependence.

Research that has adopted the punishment, learned helpless-
ness, or self-induced dependence research models has uni-
formly stressed the liabilities o f assumed incompetence: low

self-esteem, p o o r performance, low motivation, and the like.
These adverse effects occur, however, only when a person m u s t
actually p e r f o r m a task relevant to the doubted skill. In real life,
except under unusual circumstances, a person m a y well avoid
the domain. Paradoxically, then, the effects o f punishment,
learned helplessness, or self-induced dependence m a y actually
be quite positive. By allowing the person to avoid the area o f
incompetence, they p e r m i t self-esteem, motivation, and perfor-
mance to be left largely intact (cf. Frankel & Snyder, 1978;
Rothb.aum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982).

Negative self-schemata. Avoiding situations in which one
lacks skill or talent is one m e t h o d o f compartmentalizing nega-
tive self-relevant information. For some attributes, however,
negative self-relevant information or situations c a n n o t be
avoided. For example, if the negative attribute is a physical one
that a person unavoidably carries a r o u n d (e.g., obesity) or if the
negative attribute figures prominently into m a n y sit-
uations (e.g., shyness), avoidance is an impractical solution.
Under these circumstances, a person m a y develop a negative
self-schema (Markus, 1977). A self-schema is a knowledge
structure that summarizes information a b o u t the self in a par-
ticular domain and facilitates the processing o f information
a b o u t the self in that domain. Like positive self-schemata, nega-
tive self-schemata enable people to identify schema-relevant in-
formation as self-descriptive and to do so with greater speed and
confidence than is true for information not related to a self-
schema ( W u r f & Markus, 1983).

Negative self-schemata have not been widely studied, and
consequently, whatever self-protective functions they m a y serve
are speculative. A negative self-schema m a y enable a person to
label and cordon off an area o f weakness, so that it need not
permeate all aspects o f identity (Wurf & Markus, 1983). T h e
fact that schema-relevant situations can be easily identified m a y
m a k e it possible for an individual to anticipate, p r e p a r e for, or
avoid situations in which he or she will be at a disadvantage
(Wurf & Markus, 1983). A negative self-schema m a y act as a
convenient attribution for any failure (e.g., ” I d i d n ‘ t get the j o b
because o f m y weight”) that mitigates other, m o r e threatening
attributions (e.g., ” I d i d n ‘ t get the j o b because I ‘ m not good
enough”; W u r f & Markus, 1983). Future research can address
these and other potential self-protective functions.

To summarize, then, an individual’s social and cognitive en-
vironments m a y not only fail to u n d e r m i n e positive illusions
but m a y help maintain or even enhance t h e m through a variety
o f mechanisms. Thus, each person is able to live out positive
illusions relatively i m m u n e to negative feedback, because indi-
vidually and collectively, people construct a social world t h a t is
as self-enhancing as the private, internal one and a cognitive
system that maintains it. In those cases in which negative feed-
back c a n n o t be eluded, it m a y be isolated as m u c h as possible
from the rest o f the self-concept and c o m e to provide guidelines
for avoiding or managing situations relevant to negative attri-
butes.

S u m m a r y a n d C o n c l u s i o n s

Evidence f r o m social cognition research suggests that, con-
trary to m u c h traditional, psychological wisdom, the mentally

2 0 4 SHELLEY E. TAYLOR AND JONATHON D. BROWN

healthy person may not be fully cognizant o f the day-to-day
flotsam and jetsam o f life. Rather, the mentally healthy person
appears to have the enviable capacity to distort reality in a di-
rection that enhances self-esteem, maintains beliefs in personal
efficacy, and promotes an optimistic view o f the future. These
three illusions, as we have called them, appear to foster tradi-
tional criteria o f mental health, including the ability to care
about the self and others, the ability to be happy or contented,
and the ability to engage in productive and creative work.

A n analysis o f the possible mechanisms whereby these illu-
sions may operate suggests that people may simply assimilate
contradictory, negative, or ambiguous information to preexist-
ing positive schemata about the self and the world with little
processing at all. Positive illusions may also be maintained by a
series o f social and cognitive filters that discard or distort nega-
tive information. Negative information that eludes these filters
may be cordoned off from having general implications for the
self and one’s world through such mechanisms as acknowledged
pockets o f incompetence or negative self-schemata.

Despite empirical support for this analysis, our perspective
has some intrinsic limitations both as a theory and as a delinea-
tion o f a functional system. The first theoretical weakness is that
some links are not well established and require further empiri-
cal documentation. Chief among these are the direct links be-
tween illusions and positive affect, illusions and social skills, and
illusions and intellectual functioning. The evidence for all three
links is sparse, largely correlational, or both, and experimental
studies are needed. Further research is especially necessary re-
garding the link between illusions and positive affect, because,
as noted earlier, affect represents a potential route by which illu-
sions may indirectly affect other criteria o f mental health.

A second limitation is that the model does not speak persua-
sively to another c o m m o n criterion o f mental health, namely,
the capacity for personal growth and change (Jahoda, 1958).
Indeed, one might speculate that the present approach is actu-
ally antithetical to growth and chang e. That is, if people are so
able to maintain positive self-conceptions and buttress their de-
cisions even in the face o f negative feedback, where is the impe-
tus for growth and change? This criticism implicitly assumes
that growth and change necessarily emerge from negative expe-
riences. We suggest that change is often provoked by positive
experiences, such as the perception that a new career direction
will be even more rewarding than a current one. Unrealistic
optimism, an exaggerated sense o f mastery, and excessive self-
confidence may inspire people to make changes that might be
avoided if the uphill battle ahead was fully appreciated. Growth
and change may also occur when a person is faced with a nega-
tive event such as being fired from a job or developing a serious
illness. In this case, the existence o f the negative event is given,
but the capacity to alter its meaning in positive ways may pro-
duce growth and change. Thus, we argue that, far from under-
mining personal growth and change, positive illusions may actu-
ally help people, first, to seek change by minimizing awareness
o f the potential costs o f change initially and, second, to profit
from negative events that are unavoidable by enabling them to
put those events in the best light (cf. Taylor, 1983). Research
evidence on these points is needed.

A third issue concerning the viability o f the present perspec-

tive concerns the experimental nature o f m u c h o f the evidence.
We have already noted several potential biases in experimental
evidence, such as the tendency to extract people from their cus-
t o m a r y environments, expose them to unfamiliar stimuli, and
draw far-reaching conclusions about h u m a n behavior that may
in part be a response to novelty. Another problem with experi-
mental evidence is that the time perspective is short, so the long-
term consequences o f any observed biases cannot easily be as-
certained.

This criticism leads directly to a fourth major question: Are
positive illusions always adaptive? Might there not be long-term
limitations to positive illusions? Indeed, each o f the positive il-
lusions described would seem to have inherent risks. For exam-
ple, a falsely positive sense o f accomplishment may lead people
to pursue careers and interests for which they are ill-suited.
Faith in one’s capacity to master situations may lead people to
persevere at tasks that may, in fact, be uncontrollable; knowing
when to abandon a task may be as important as knowing when
to pursue it (Janoff-Bulman & Brickman, 1982). Unrealistic op-
timism may lead people to ignore legitimate risks in their envi-
ronments and to fail to take measures to offset those risks. False
optimism may, for example, lead people to ignore important
health habits (Weinstein, 1982) or to fail to prepare for a likely
catastrophic event, such as a flood or an earthquake (Lehman
& Taylor, in press). Faith in the inherent goodness o f one’s be-
liefs and actions may lead a person to trample on the rights and
values o f others; centuries o f atrocities committed in the name
o f religious and political values bear witness to the liabilities o f
such faith. I f positive illusions foster the use o f shortcuts and
heuristics for making judgments and decisions (Isen & Means,
1983), this may lead people to oversimplify complex intellectual
tasks and to ignore important sources o f information.

It is not clear that the preceding points are limits o f positive
illusions, only that they are possible candidates. It is important
to remember that people’s self-evaluations are only one aspect
o f judgments about any situation, and there may be non-ego-
related information inherent in situations that offsets the effects
o f illusions and leads people to amend their behavior. For exam-
ple, a man who does poorly at a j o b may fail to correctly inter-
pret negative feedback as evidence that he is doing a poor job,
but he may come to feel that he does not like the job, his boss,
or his co-workers very much; consequently, he may leave. The
certitude that one is right may lead to discrimination against
or hatred o f others who hold different beliefs. People may be
dissuaded, however, from committing certain actions, such as
murder or incarceration o f others, in service o f their beliefs be-
cause they believe the means are wrong or because they know
they will be punished; this recognition may, nevertheless, leave
their beliefs intact. Potential liabilities associated with one illu-
sion may be canceled out by another. For example, false opti-
mism may lead people to underestimate their vulnerability to
cancer, but mastery needs may lead people to control their
smoking, diet, or other risk factors. The preceding argument is
not meant to suggest that positive illusions are without liabili-
ties. Indeed, there may be many. One should not, however, leap
to any obvious conclusions regarding potential liabilities o f pos-
itive illusions without an appreciation o f possible countervail-
ing forces that may help offset those liabilities.

ILLUSION AND WELL-BEING 205

I n c o n c l u s i o n , t h e o v e r r i d i n g i m p l i c a t i o n t h a t we d r a w f r o m
o u r analysis o f this l i t e r a t u r e is t h a t c e r t a i n biases i n p e r c e p t i o n
t h a t have p r e v i o u s l y b e e n t h o u g h t o f as a m u s i n g peccadillos at
best a n d serious flaws i n i n f o r m a t i o n processing at worst m a y
actually b e highly adaptive u n d e r m a n y c i r c u m s t a n c e s . T h e i n –
d i v i d u a l w h o r e s p o n d s to negative, a m b i g u o u s , or u n s u p p o r t i v e
feedback w i t h a positive sense o f self, a b e l i e f i n personal effi-
cacy, a n d a n o p t i m i s t i c sense o f t h e f u t u r e will, we m a i n t a i n , be
happier, m o r e caring, a n d m o r e p r o d u c t i v e t h a n t h e i n d i v i d u a l
w h o perceives this s a m e i n f o r m a t i o n a c c u r a t e l y a n d integrates
it i n t o his or her view o f t h e self, t h e world, a n d the future. I n
this sense, the capacity to develop a n d m a i n t a i n positive illu-
sions m a y b e t h o u g h t o f as a v a l u a b l e h u m a n resource to be
n u r t u r e d a n d p r o m o t e d , r a t h e r t h a n a n e r r o r – p r o n e processing
system to be corrected. I n a n y case, these i l l u s i o n s help m a k e
each i n d i v i d u a l ‘ s world a w a r m e r a n d m o r e active a n d benefi-
c e n t place i n w h i c h to live.

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Received D e c e m b e r 29, 1986
Revision received J u n e 25, 1987

Accepted J u n e 30, 1987 �9

C a l l f o r N o m i n a t i o n s f o r E d i t o r o f J E P : L e a r n i n g , M e m o r y , a n d C o g n i t i o n

The Publications and C o m m u n i c a t i o n s B o a r d has opened n o m i n a t i o n s for the editorship o f the
Journal of Experimental Psychology.” Learning, Memory, and Cognition for the years 1990-
1995. H e n r y L. Roediger III is the i n c u m b e n t editor. Candidates must be m e m b e r s o f APA and
should be available to start receiving manuscripts in early 1989 to p r e p a r e for issues published
in 1990. Please n o t e t h a t the P&C B o a r d encourages m o r e p a r t i c i p a t i o n b y women a n d ethnic
m i n o r i t y m e n and women in the publication process and would particularly welcome such
nominees. To n o m i n a t e candidates, p r e p a r e a statement o f one page or less in s u p p o r t o f each
candidate. S u b m i t n o m i n a t i o n s no later t h a n A p r i l 4, 1988, to

G a r y M. Olson
D e p a r t m e n t o f Psychology
University o f Michigan
330 P a c k a r d R o a d
A n n Arbor, Michigan 48104.

Other m e m b e r s o f the search c o m m i t t e e are Lyle Bourne, Charles Clifton, and A n n e Pick.