Is Unrealistic Optimism Really Adaptive ? : A Negative Aspect of Repressors' Optimism

Abstract

Although it has been proposed that self-serving bias must be adaptive, this may be explained by the contribution of subgroups of extremely positive individuals like repressors, who score low on the STAI and high on the Marlowe-Crowne scale. On the other hand, low-anxious individuals score low on both scales. Participants in the present research were adults. In Study 1, repressors exhibited tendencies of overly positive self-evaluation and unrealistic optimism, but low-anxious participants were not as optimistic. Repressors also showed only small discrepancies between their "actual self" and their goals, which could explain their low distress. In Study 2, repressors had unrealistically optimistic expectations about real-life examinations, and their results were worse than they had expected. Moreover, when that happened, repressors did not lower their expectations about the next examination, or even modified them to be more optimistic. These results suggest that repressors exhibit unrealistic optimism not because the discrepancy between their actual self and their goals is really small, but because they neglect negative feedback information about the present situation. Is unrealistic optimism "truly" adaptive ? The present studies suggest that the answer is "no".