POSITIVE ILLUSION
The term positive illusion represents a multidimensional psychological dimension consisting of the following three sub-constructs: self-aggrandizement, illusion of control, and unrealistic optimism (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Unrealistic optimism is the perception that the future holds an idealistically bountiful array of opportunities and an absence of adverse events.
Three common illusions are unrealistic optimism, an exaggerated sense of control and overly positive self-evaluation. Tiger (1979) and Taylor & Brown (1988) claim that they serve a variety of important functions. People search for ways to increase their self-esteem and pleasure, and reject thoughts and situations that will do the opposite. (Tiger,1979) They filter incoming information and distort reality so that what is negative appears less threatening (Taylor & Brown, 1988).
Someone who has high positive illusions may possess a number of specific positive outcomes to individuals who have unrealistically positive views, including better mental health, higher academic performance, better romantic relationships, and even increased performance in sports and organizational activities. Individuals having positive illusion are able to see things from a variety of different perspectives, including future possibilities, and they are better equipped to make good choices, and do better, than individuals who are stuck in memories of past humiliation and failure. Thinking bad thoughts and being depressed decreases our ability to make good judgments, and increases sensations of bodily pain. Depressed people have less complex thought processes, and use fewer categories to make sense of information; the categories they use tend to be simple, polarized ones (good-bad, black-white), instead of complex. They are unable to see additional perspectives that would lead them out of depression. By enslaving themselves to thoughts about how stupid and disgusting they are, they keep themselves from doing their best. Positive illusions lead people out of depression, and give them a jump-start on succeeding. It may promote the capacity for creative, productive work in two ways: First, these illusions may facilitate intellectually creative functioning itself and second, they enhance motivation, persistence, and performance.
Positive illusions are associated with greater motivation, persistence, creative work, intellectual functioning and happiness (Taylor & Brown, 1988). It is happy, confident people who succeed in the workplace. No one listens to the doomsday prophesiers. The more confident people are the more over-confident they are and the more likely it is that they will be listened to (Klayman, Soll, Gonzalez-Vallejo and Barlas, 1999).
We can conclude that positive illusion is both good and bad for an individual depending upon the degree of illusion the concerned person carries in his mind. Let’s share some example of positive illusion. We have a family owned business. It is established by our parents and now it is manage and run by one of our brother (Sujan). He is a person with high positive attitude (positive illusion). He is so confident in whatever he does. Our business is basically related with supplying medical equipment. We import medical equipment like ultra sound, city scan, ECG machine etc and sell those to all the hospitals all over the Nepal. But today Sujan (my brother) owns number of hospitals too. He diversified the business into private hospitals. Before implementing such diversification strategy, my brother and my father has a lot of discussion about whether or not to take the risk of diversification. My father insists Sujan not to go with such risky strategies. But Sujan is so confident in his decisions. He opened two different hospitals in two different cities and today he owns more than 19 private hospitals all over the Nepal.
Sujan is the person with positive illusion. He is PhD doctor in bio-chemistry. When he was graduated from high school our parents wanted to send him in the business school. But he was so reluctant to go to business school because he was interested in science (Biochemistry). Because of parent’s huge pressure to go to business school, he run away from the house and went to join the science school. And later he is graduated from the science with distinction.
In my opinion, he is a person with extremely high positive illusion. He always does what he likes to do no matter whatever the situation and consequences will be. He just does it.
There is another example too but this is concerned with Sujan’s personal life. One he told me that he likes a lady who is so beautiful, smart and educated, etc. after few months I was so surprised when I meet with her. I didn’t see anything in her whatever quality my brother explain to me about her. The way she talks, she behaves and her overall look nothing is as explained by my brother. After five month they get married. And in another one year they divorced.
I think this is the perfect example of positive illusion.
There are some other examples of positive illusion. When I was working in a finance company our company’s credit manager leave the company and join the rival commercial bank. The position of credit manager remained vacant for about six month due to the conflict between the Board of Directors and the Chief Operating Officer about new credit manager hiring decision. In that finance company both of these people are equally power full to make decision to hire the credit manager due to the organizational culture. The main problem was that the CEO wanted to promote the senior credit personnel to the vacant position of credit manager but on the other hand, Board of directors wanted to hire an outsider who is fresh university graduate of a Nepalese government business school. Finally the new guy (an outsider) is selected as a new credit manager of the company because of the Board of Directors continues pressure in the human resource department to hire the new guy rather than promoting the senior credit personnel. But, later it is discover that the new guy is not the right man in the right position. During his period, credit department seriously under performed in all its areas. They have landed so many credits to those business to which nobody offer credit. When the management asks about it, credit department replied that “we have charged high interest to cover the higher risk”. And surprisingly they even landed to the people whose name is on the black list of the government to whom no financial institution provide credit. Looking at the scenario management committee finally decides to transfer new credit manager to the branch location and promoted the senior credit Personnel as credit manager.
Actually it was happened due to the positive illusion of the Board of Directors about the Fresh Graduate of the business schools. He believed that the fresh graduate of the business school are the great performer and later it is discovered that his decision was wrong.
Another example of positive illusion in our family own business is that we have a marketing manager who has great marketing skills. We all agreed that he is the great performer in the entire organization, basically in the sales group. But later he started thinking that he is all and all in our business and started demanding unnecessarily high salary from the management giving threat of leaving the company and opening his own. Our management team tried to convince him but he remained unaltered in his decision and ultimately management team fired him. After few months, he opened his own marketing agency and started supplying the similar kind of equipments that we do. But unfortunately, because of the high price war, he could not survive in the business and finally closed the business. Now, he again joined our business and doing well in the marketing department. It was his high positive illusion about himself. He thought that he can run own business but that was just his illusion.
In conclusion, positive illusion is both good and bad. In some situation it is extremely good but in other situation it is bad too. My brother’s decision to go to science school and implementing new business strategy was good side of his positive illusion or say positive thinking. On the other hand, his decision to marry the lady who just completely different than whatever he claimed about her was other side of the positive illusion. Beside this, our marketing manager’s decision to leave our company was bad side of the positive illusion and similarly Board of Directors decision to hire fresh graduate who know nothing about the banking and credit policies is another cons of the positive illusion.
Reference
Lightsey, O.R. & Christopher, J.C. (1997). Stress Buffers in a non-Western population. Journal of Counseling and Development. 75(6), 451-459.
Klayman, J., Soll, J.B., Gonzalez-Vallejo, C. & Barlas, S. (1999). Overconfidence: It depends on how, what, and whom you ask. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79(3), 216-247.
Bazerman, Max H.(2006) Judgement in managerial decision making 7th edition. Hoboken, New Jersey; John Wiley & Sons.
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