Positive illusions about the self: Short-term benefits and long-term costs.

2001/01/01 by Richard W. Robins, Jennifer S. Beer · 10 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Personality Traits and Psychology #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Psychology #Disengagement theory #Social psychology #Context (archaeology) #Attribution #Illusion #Term (time) #Affect (linguistics) #Self-enhancement #Developmental psychology #Narcissism #Cognitive psychology

paper · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.2.340

openalex publication_date 2001/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Two studies addressed parallel questions about the correlates and consequences of self-enhancement bias. Study 1 was conducted in a laboratory context and examined self-enhancing evaluations of performance in a group-interaction task. Study 2 assessed students' illusory beliefs about their academic ability when they first entered college and then followed them longitudinally to test claims about the long-term benefits of positive illusions. Both studies showed that self-enhancement bias was related to narcissism, ego involvement, self-serving attributions, and positive affect. Study 2 found that self-enhancement was associated with decreasing levels of self-esteem and well-being as well as with increasing disengagement from the academic context. Self-enhancement did not predict higher academic performance or higher graduate rates. Thus, the findings suggest that self-enhancing beliefs may be adaptive in the short term but not in the long term.

Citations

• A Global Measure of Perceived Stress
• Accuracy and bias in self-perception: Individual differences in self-enhancement and the role of narcissism.
• The CES-D Scale
• Effects of mindset on positive illusions.
• Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health.
• Advances In Experimental Social Psychology
• Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.
• Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.
• Optimism, coping, psychological distress, and high-risk sexual behavior among men at risk for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Cited by

• Self-Enhancement Among High-Exposure Survivors of the September 11th Terrorist Attack: Resilience or Social Maladjustment?
• Motivational and Emotional Aspects of the Self
• Self-Enhancement and Psychological Adjustment: A Meta-Analytic Review
• Impulsivity and the Self-Defeating Behavior of Narcissists
• Self-evaluation bias and academic performance: Some ways and some reasons why
• Moderators of the adaptiveness of self-enhancement: Operationalization, motivational domain, adjustment facet, and evaluator
• Portrait of the self-enhancer: Well adjusted and well liked or maladjusted and friendless?
• Know thyself: Misperceptions of actual performance undermine achievement motivation, future performance, and subjective well-being.
• Accountability as a deterrent to self-enhancement: The search for mechanisms.
• Positive illusions [wikipedia]