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 selfevaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism are characteristic 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 niters on incoming information that distort it in a positive direction; negative information may be isolated and represented in as unthreatening 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 well-adjusted person is thought to engage in accurate reality testing, whereas the individual whose vision is clouded by illusion is regarded as vulnerable to, if not already a victim of, mental 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 human cognition (see Fiske& Taylor, 1984; In this article, we review research suggesting that certain illusions may be adaptive for mental health and well-being. In particular, we examine evidence that a set of interrelated positive illusions-namely, unrealistically positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism-can serve a wide variety of cognitive, affective, and social functions. We also attempt to resolve the following paraPreparation of this article was supported by National Science Foundation 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, Chancellor'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 Greenwald, Connie Hammen, Darrin Lehman, Chuck McClintock, Dick Nisbett, Lee Ross, Bill Swann, Joanne Wood, and two anonymous reviewers. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Shelley E. Taylor, University of California, Department of Psychology, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024-1563. Our healthy individuals find it possible to accept themselves and their own nature without chagrin or complaint.. . . They can accept 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. so that one is able to take in matters one wishes were different without distorting them to fit these wishes. (1953, p. 349) Since Jahoda's report, the position that the mentally healthy person perceives reality accurately has been put forth in major works by To summarize, then, although it is not the only theoretical perspective on the mentally healthy person, the view that psychological health depends on accurate perceptions of reality has been widely promulgated and widely shared in the literature on mental health. Social Cognition, Reality, and Illusion Early theorists in social cognition adopted a view of the person'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 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 of incomplete data gathering, shortcuts, errors, and biases (see At this point, we exchange the terms 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 by careless oversight or other temporary negligences (cf. Funder, 1987). Illusion, in contrast, implies a more general, enduring pattern of error, bias, or both that assumes a particular direction or shape. As the evidence will show, the illusions to be considered (unrealistically positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control, and unrealistic optimism) do indeed seem to be pervasive, enduring, and systematic. Illusion is denned 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 of an illusion as a belief that departs from reality presupposes an objective grasp of reality. This point puts us on the perilous brink of philosophical debate concerning whether one can ever know reality. Fortunately, at least to some degree, the methodologies of social psychology spare us this frustrating conundrum by providing operational definitions. In some cases, evidence for illusions comes from 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 of that feedback; this paradigm can provide estimates of an individual's accuracy as well as information about the direction (positive or negative) of any distortions. As will be seen, people typically distort such feedback in a self-serving manner. More subjective self-evaluations (e.g., how happy or well-adjusted one is) do not have these same objective standards of comparison. In such cases, an illusion is implied if the majority of people report that they are more (or less) likely than the majority of people to hold a particular belief. For example, if most people believe that they are happier, better adjusted, and more skilled on a variety of tasks than most other people, such perceptions provide evidence suggestive of an illusion. Illusions about the future are operationally difficult to establish because no one knows what the future will bring. If it can be shown, however, that most people believe that their future is more positive than that of most other people or more positive than objective baserate data can support, then evidence suggestive of illusions about the future is provided. We now turn to the evidence for these illusions. Positive Illusions and Social Cognition Any taxonomy of illusions is, to some extent, arbitrary. Many researchers have studied biases in the processing of self-relevant information and have given their similar phenomena 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 research evidence will recognize that much of the evidence for these positive illusions comes from experimental studies and from research with college students. We will have more to say about potential biases in the experimental literature later in this article. At present, it is important to note that all three of the ILLUSION AND WELL-BEING 195 illusions to be discussed have been documented in noncollege populations as well. Unrealistically Positive Views of the Self As indicated earlier, a traditional conception of mental health asserts that the well-adjusted individual possesses a view of the self that includes an awareness and acceptance of both the positive and negative aspects of self. In contrast to this portrayal, evidence indicates that most individuals possess a very positive view of the self (see Furthermore, the things that people are not proficient at are perceived as less important than the things that they are proficient at (e.g., In sum, far from being balanced between the positive and the negative, the perception of self that most individuals hold is heavily weighted toward the positive end of the scale. Of course, this imbalance does not in and of itself provide evidence that such views are unrealistic or illusory. Evidence of 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 of themselves than of the average person but see negative personality attributes as less descriptive of themselves than of the average person People also tend to use their positive qualities when appraising others, thereby virtually assuring a favorable self-other comparison Although the tendency to see the self as better than others is attenuated somewhat when the others being evaluated are close friends or relatives A second source of evidence pertaining to the illusory quality of positive self-perceptions comes from investigations in which self-ratings have been compared with judgments made by observers. In sum, the perception of self that most individuals hold is not as well-balanced as traditional models of mental health suggest. Rather than being attentive to both the favorable and unfavorable aspects of self, normal individuals appear to be very cognizant of their strengths and assets and considerably less aware of their weaknesses and faults. Evidence that these flattering 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

Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. However, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion— that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation—extends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for increased use of indirect measures—which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with recent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects are often reduced by focusing judges ' attention on their judgment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination. Long before they became central to other areas of psychological theory, concepts of cognitive mediation dominated the analysis of social behavior. The constructs on which this article focuses

economics, rationality Most real decisions, unlike those of economics texts, have a status quo alternative-that is, doing noth-ing or maintaining one’s current or previous decision. A series of decision-making experiments shows that individuals disproportionately stick with the status quo. Data on the selections of health plans and retirement programs by faculty members reveal that the status quo bias is substantial in important real decisions. Economics, psychology, and decision theory provide possible explanations for this bias. Ap-plications are discussed ranging from marketing techniques, to industrial organization, to the advance of science. “To do nothing is within the power of all men.”

During the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in societal interest in preventing disability and death in the United States by changing individual behaviors linked to the risk of contracting chronic diseases. This renewed interest in health pro-motion and disease prevention has not been without its critics. Some critics have accused proponents of life-style interventions of promoting a victim-blaming ideology by neglecting the importance of social influences on health and disease. This article proposes an ecological model for health promotion which focuses atten-tion on both individual and social environmental factors as targets for health promo-tion interventions. It addresses the importance of interventions directed at changing interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy, factors which support and maintain unhealthy behaviors. The model assumes that appropriate changes in the social environment will produce changes in individuals, and that the support of individ-uals in the population is essential for implementing environmental changes.

Current psychological theory and research affirm the positive affective and motivational consequences of having personal choice. These findings have led to the popular notion that the more choice, the better--that the human ability omanage, and the human desire for, choice isunlimited. Findings from 3 experimental studies starkly challenge this implicit assumption that having more choices is necessarily more intrinsically motivating than having fewer. These experiments, which were conducted in both field and laboratory settings, show that people are more likely to purchase gourmet jams or chocolates or to undertake optional class essay assignments when offered a limited array of 6 choices rather than a more extensive array of 24 or 30 choices. Moreover, participants actually reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections and wrote better essays when their original set of options had been limited. Implications for future research are discussed. Ne quid nimis. (In all things moderation.)--Publius Terentius Afer (Terence), c. 171 B.C. It is a common supposition in modern society that the more choices, the better--that the human ability to manage, and the human desire for, choice is infinite. From classic economic theo-ries of free enterprise, to mundane marketing practices that provide customers with entire aisles devoted to potato chips or soft drinks, to important life decisions in which people contemplate alternative career options or multiple investment opportunities, this belief pervades our institutions, norms, and customs. Ice cream parlors compete to offer the most flavors; major fast-food chains urge us to "Have it our way."

Choice, active response, self-regulation, and other volition may all draw on a common inner resource. In Experiment 1, people who forced themselves to eat radishes instead of tempting chocolates subsequently quit faster on unsolvable puzzles than people who had not had to exert self-control over eating. In Experiment 2, making a meaningful personal choice to perform attitude-relevant behavior caused a similar decrement in persistence. In Experiment 3, suppressing emotion led to a subsequent drop in performance of solvable anagrams. In Experiment 4, an initial task requiring high self-regulation made people more passive (i.e., more prone to favor the passive-response option). These results suggest that the self's capacity for active volition is limited and that a range of seemingly different, unrelated acts share a common resource. Many crucial functions of the self involve volition: making choices and decisions, taking responsibility, initiating and inhibiting behavior, and making plans of action and carrying out those plans. The self exerts control over itself and over the external world. To be sure, not all human behavior involves planful or deliberate control by the self, and, in fact, recent work

Is the mind, by design, predisposed against performing Bayesian inference? Previous research on base rate neglect suggests that the mind lacks the appropriate cognitive algorithms. However, any claim against the existence of an algorithm, Bayesian or otherwise, is impossible to evaluate unless one specifies the information format in which it is designed to operate. The authors show that Bayesian algorithms are computationally simpler in frequency formats than in the probability formats used in previous research. Frequency formats correspond to the sequential way information is acquired in natural sampling, from animal foraging to neural networks. By analyzing several thousand solutions to Bayesian problems, the authors found that when information was presented in frequency formats, statistically naive participants derived up to 50 % of all inferences by Bayesian algorithms. Non-Bayesian algorithms included simple versions of Fisherian and Neyman-Pearsonian inference. Is the mind, by design, predisposed against performing Bayesian inference? The classical probabilists of the Enlightenment, including Condorcet, Poisson, and Laplace, equated probability theory with the common sense of educated people, who were known then as “hommes éclairés.” Laplace (1814/1951) declared that “the theory of probability is at bottom nothing more than good sense reduced to a calculus which evaluates that which good minds know by a sort of instinct,

Davis, Gerald Smith and Aks Zaheer for their helpful reviews and comments on earlier versions of this paper. Trust is a key enabler of cooperative human actions. Three main deficiencies about our current knowledge of trust are addressed by this paper. First, due to widely divergent conceptual definitions of trust, the literature on trust is in a state of construct confusion. Second, too little is understood about how trust forms and on what trust is based. Third, little has been discussed about the role of emotion in trust formation. To address the first deficiency, this paper develops a typology of trust. The rest of the paper addresses the second and third deficiencies by proposing a model of how trust is initially formed, including the role of emotion. Dispositional, interpersonal, and impersonal (system) trust are integrated in the model. The paper also clarifies the cognitive and emotional bases on which interpersonal trust is formed in early relationships. The implications

Empirical studies have shown that decision makers do not usually treat probabili-ties linearly. Instead, people tend to overweight small probabilities and underweight large probabilities. One way to model such distortions in decision making under risk is through a probability weighting function. We present a nonparametric estimation procedure for assessing the probability weighting function and value function at the level of the individual subject. The evidence in the domain of gains supports a two-parameter weighting function, where each parameter is given a psychological interpretation: one parameter measures how the decision maker discriminates proba-bilities, and the other parameter measures how attractive the decision maker views gambling. These findings are consistent with a growing body of empirical and theo-retical work attempting to establish a psychological rationale for the probability weighting function. ª 1999 Academic Press The perception of probability has a psychophysics all its own. If men have a 2 % chance of contracting a particular disease and women have a 1% chance, we perceive the risk for men as twice the risk for women. However, the same difference of 1 % appears less dramatic when the chance of con-

Most theories of affective in ¯ uences on judgement and choice take a valencebased approach, contrasting the effects of positive versus negative feeling states. These approaches have not speci ® ed if and when distinct emotions of the same valence have different effects on judgement. In this article, we propose a model of emotion-speci ® c in ¯ uences on judgement and choice. We posit that each emotion is de ® ned by a tendency to perceive new events and objects in ways that are consistent with the original cognitive-appraisal dimensions of the emotion. To pit the valence and appraisal-tendency approaches against one another, we present a study that addresses whether two emotions of the same valence but differing appraisalsÐ anger and fearÐ relate in different ways to risk perception. Consistent with the appraisaltendency hypothesis, fearful people made pessimistic judgements of future events whereas angry people made optimistic judgements. In the Discussion we expand the proposed model and review evidence supporting two social moderators of appraisal-tendency processes.