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Definition:

Positive illusions are patterns of beliefs about oneself, the world, and the future characterized by ‘systematic small distortions of reality that make things appear better than they are’ (Taylor 1989, 228).

Types of positive illusions:

 Illusion of control – to believe that one can control independent, external events (e.g., Langer & Roth 1975).

 Illusion of superiority – to believe that one is better-than-average in a variety of domains, including attractiveness, intelligence, and moral character (e.g., Brown 2012; Wolpe, Wolpert, & Rowe 2014).

 Optimism bias or unrealistic optimism – to predict that one’s future will be largely positive and will yield progress, and that negative events will not be part of one’s life (Sharot 2011; Weinstein 1980).

Examples:

 Control: You believe that you have a better chance at winning in a betting situation if you are the one dealing the cards or throwing the dice.

 Superiority: You believe that you are smarter than your colleagues even if the evidence does not support that.

 Optimism bias: You believe that you are immune to a highly infectious disease that other people are catching.

According to McKay and Dennett, positive illusions are ‘adaptive misbeliefs’: in other words, they are false beliefs that are adaptive in themselves. For example, your positive illusion about your health might enhance your actual health and life expectancy. If McKay and Dennett are correct, truth might not be the function of positive illusions (or the mechanisms that produce them).

Please note that positive illusions are importantly different from the errors that are due to the adoption of heuristics. In the case of heuristics, false beliefs are merely tolerated; the errors themselves do not have evolutionary value. However, in the case of positive illusions, false beliefs positively contribute to fitness. The function of positive illusions (or, more precisely, the underlying mechanism responsible for positive illusions) is perhaps something other than tracking truth.

Dennett and McKay’s argument is certainly compelling. But is it really true that positive illusions do not have the function of tracking truth? As Ruth Millikan (2004) points out, it may be too hasty to draw that conclusion. For example, it is conceivable that the original and basic role of positive illusions is tracking truth, but they later acquired the other derivative roles of contributing to survival and reproduction in a different way, which could interfere with the original function in some cases: ‘[M]any biological systems ride piggyback on systems developed earlier for other purposes. Systems whose jobs were to distort certain beliefs would have to ride on more general systems whose basic jobs were to produce true beliefs’ (Millikan 2004, 86).

Another worry is that some forms of optimism involving a denial of existing threats are maladaptive, and the challenge is how to distinguish them from positive illusions. In 2020, people all around the world experienced the devastating effects of COVID-19. Some people seemed to firmly believe in their relative safety and immunity (‘I won’t be infected,’ ‘Even if I were infected, I would just have mild symptoms,’ etc.), and due to underestimating their personal risk they also exhibited reckless behaviour. For the purpose of survival, denying health threats does not seem to be a good strategy – especially during a global pandemic. We can imagine that our ancestors were more frequently exposed to life-threatening diseases and viruses. In that ancient environment, the negative impact of simplistic optimism may have easily outweighed its positive impact.

Positive illusions have been conceived as the capacity to respond effectively to threats, not as the denial of those threats, and thus they may be immune from this problem (Bortolotti 2018; Taylor 1989). However, questions remain as to how to distinguish non-adaptive optimism from adaptive positive illusions.