![]() An example of the optimism bias is when people underestimate the likelihood that their marriage will end in divorce or that they will develop a serious health condition during their lives ( Weinstein, 1980). An example of the better-than-average effect is when college professors are asked whether they do above-average work, and 94% of them say they do ( Cross, 1977). Instances of the illusion of control can be found in a casino, where people tend to think that they have a better chance at winning when they are the ones rolling the dice, and thus they bet more money in those circumstances ( Vyse, 1997). Here are some examples of positive illusions. ![]() In our paper, we use the expressions ‘unrealistic optimism’ and ‘optimism bias’ interchangeably, which is common practice in the literature. While several other forms of positive illusions have been identified in the psychological literature (e.g., self-serving bias and wishful thinking, Krizan and Windschitl, 2009, Shepperd et al., 2008), we will consider the following three forms: (1) the illusion of control, which is an exaggerated belief in one’s capacity to control independent, external events (e.g., Langer & Roth, 1975) (2) the better than average effect (sometimes also called the superiority illusion), which is the perception of oneself, one’s past behaviour, and one’s lasting features as more positive than is the case (“I am more talented than the average person”) (e.g., Brown, 2012) (3) unrealistic optimism, which is the “tendency for people to believe that they are less likely to experience negative events and more likely to experience positive events than are other people” ( Shepperd, Carroll, Grace, & Terry, 2002, p. Throughout the paper we reflect on a number of methodological challenges in the empirical study of optimism.ġ. Unrealistic optimism and other positive illusions In Section 5 we discuss two ways of understanding fixity of beliefs, i.e., whether beliefs are responsive to evidence and whether they are sensitive to life circumstances. Are they typically false? Are they epistemically irrational? The answers to these questions will be informed by an analysis of the extent to which optimistically biased beliefs and predictions are fixed. In Sections 3, 4, we consider their epistemic status. Are they tendencies to adopt and maintain positive beliefs and to make predictions that are optimistically biased, or to express desires and hopes about the self and the future? We suggest that we should understand optimistically biased cognitive states as beliefs and predictions. In Section 2, we ask how we should think about positive illusions. In Section 1, we distinguish between unrealistic optimism and other positive illusions and explain different ways of operationalizing unrealistic optimism. Whether they do indeed have positive effects is beyond the scope of this paper. ![]() If such cognitive states can be said to be false or epistemically irrational beliefs, then they are candidates for being false or epistemically irrational beliefs that are useful. In order to assess such claims, we need to explain what unrealistic optimism is, whether the cognitive states that are unrealistically optimistic are belief states, and to what extent they are false. It is sometimes claimed that positive illusions generally, and unrealistic optimism specifically, are systematic tendencies to form beliefs that are biased, and often false, but have significant benefits ( Taylor and Brown, 1988, Taylor and Brown, 1994), because they increase wellbeing, contribute to mental and physical health, and support productivity and motivation (cf. Beliefs exhibit epistemic irrationality to the extent that they are badly supported by the evidence available to the agent, or are maintained despite counter-evidence which is available to the agent. There is an ongoing debate in philosophy and psychology as to whether false beliefs are epistemically irrational and whether they can have pragmatic benefits, even if they are epistemically irrational ( Bortolotti and Sullivan-Bissett, 2015, Craigie and Bortolotti, 2014, Haselton and Nettle, 2006). In this paper we are interested in the nature of unrealistic optimism and other positive illusions as discussed in the psychological literature.
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