Teaching English.

Systematic illusionary biases – defense against unbearable reality.

Teaching English in Japan is a messy business. Nothing in the collective account of introspective and homogeneous obsessed mythology that passes as Japanese culture has prepared its citizens to want to learn another language. Embedded in this body of folk fable is the notion that the Japanese brain is somehow different, and certainly not wired to adopt any other language such as English. Given the futility of the task, it’s a mystery why the humble Gaijin recruits, fresh out of Uni and with the scent of money in his/her nostrils, enthusiastically pursues the spreading of English with evangelical vigor. They somehow morph into the English teacher. These mild distortions of reality, also know as positive illusions, form an adaptive defense against the ugly realities of life and allow us to ‘do’ everyday things that might otherwise be overwhelming. In fact “if we did not deceive ourselves, we would go mad from distress” (Smith 2004).

Traditionally the psychology literature maintained that adaptive beliefs are those which most accurately reflect reality. Moreover humans are biologically engineered to form accurate beliefs (Dennett 1987, Millikan 1984, 1993) where truthful beliefs are positively correlated with mental health. Yet depression is more closely associated with unbiased evaluation (Coyne and Gotlib 1983, Watson and Clark, 1984) and Bandura (1989) points out that without elevated (unrealistic) self-efficacy beliefs people would rarely attempt more than their basic performance. Taylor and Brown (1988) reported that the majority of healthy people hold overly positive views of themselves, overestimate the degree to which they control their environment and are unrealistically optimistic. The authors consider the implications of how positive illusions contribute to psychological well being raising the question; Is a degree of self deception not only sufficient to step into the potentially killer vehicle, but actually a necessary condition? Is mild illusion the norm?

Not according to Colvin and Block (1994) who state categorically “accurate perception of the relation between oneself and reality is necessary for physical and social adaptation” (p. 17). The Authors strongly reject Taylor and Brown’s evidence of pervasive, enduring and systematic illusions (as an ingredient in maintaining psychological well-being) in favor of cognitive processing errors, flawed human inference and heuristics (Nisbett & Ross, 1980) which lead to biased perceptions and decisions (Weinstein, 1980). Colvin and Block view the distortion of reality as suboptimal, where even mild illusions are maladaptive and even delusional. The authors focus heavily on discrediting the reported association between depression and ‘depressive realism’ (Ackerman & DeRubeis, 1991) as the foundation of Taylor and Browns work. While we are largely concerned with evidence for systematic biases in healthy people to carry out everyday activities, it remains necessary to clarify Colvin and Block’s objections regarding depressions and illusion.

There is a large body of accumulated evidence that mildly depressed persons exhibit less biased evaluative responses (more realism to the actual state of the world and their situation within it) than non-depressed persons (Beck, 1976; Ruehlman, 1985; Brown, 1993; Watson & Clark, 1984). These negative evaluations are seen as a result of depression, not a cause (Haaga, 1991). Taylor and Brown note that non-depressed individuals have mildly positive (unsupported) biases. For example; a good deal of the world lives in unrelenting misery and hunger. Unless we are capable of shielding ourselves from the totality of the situation, we would be constantly disturbed (Smith, 1984). Optimism therefore reduces stress (Chang et al. 1994). Healthy individuals appear more able to shield themselves than depressed people from negative realities (Beck, 1976). Again Taylor and Brown note that healthy people believe their performance is above average and they display overly optimistic views about the future.  

Taylor and Brown do not dispute people are highly ingenious in manipulating cognitive processes to promote positive views of themselves, but consider this as a cognitive vehicle to maintain positive illusions, not a counter explanation. The authors conclude illusions of self, control, and the future contribute to overall psychological adaptation, but do not make the claim that illusions the cause of wellbeing.

Contrary to the above Colvin and Block on the other hand strongly argue that the evidence concerning depressed individuals and lack of positive illusions has been misrepresented. They argue that responses from healthy well adjusted individuals are more positive simply because those people have higher self-esteem than depressed people. Consequently as Gjerde et al (1988) reported, depressed and healthy individuals portray their current psychological state accurately. Healthy individuals are more positive and optimistic because their lives are more positive and promising (p.480). Illusions play no part. Accordingly well adjusted people will see themselves as better drivers than depressed drivers not because of overly positive views of their driving ability but because they are better drivers!

While Colvin and Block seemingly make a logical point about depression and accurate reporting they disregard the fact that not everyone can be a better driver than the average driver (unless the driving population distribution is highly skewed) and here the evidence for pervasive, enduring and systematic illusions becomes compelling. Svenson (1981) investigated 161 drivers’ opinions of their driving skill in relation to the notion of an average driver, asking participants to evaluate their own driving safety and skill in comparison to cohorts in the experiment. The results revealed subjects report an overly positive view of their driving skill (88% of US participants) as being in the top 20% of most skillful drivers. Could these results be confounded by participants simply bragging on a self report scale? Greenwood and Brecker (1985) posit the results are genuine since responses were they same in private as in public, with honesty incentives, and answered quickly without the opportunity to construct false responses. Yet would participants be loath to use the word ‘average’ as it has negative connotations and thus create a motivation to avoid it as a self assessment item? (Groeger, 2000). 

The overly positive view of self does appear to generalize beyond the subjects’ self-efficacy beliefs to those of their family, friends, immediate group and national associations who are also reported as above average. In a mind bogglingly clever experiment Horswill, Waylen & Tofield (2004) tested the self-efficacy believes of expert police drivers in comparison to average rookie police drivers. A reported attribute of being expert is the ability to more realistically evaluate situations and required skill level (Anderson, 2000). Therefore expert police drivers should be expected evaluate their own ability in relation to their peer group and in relation to the average (novice) group more realistically. However Horswill et al did not find this to be the case. Experts demonstrated a bias against the novice driving group (Horswill et al, 2004) vis their peer group and a smaller but still significant overly positive evaluation of their own performance within their peer group (Horswill et al, 2004).  Even experts then who are predicted to be more realistic display a bias toward overly positive views of themselves and their group.

The second illusion that Taylor and Brown suggest is adaptive is the illusions of control, the idea that we have more control than we objectively do in any given situation (Langer, 1975). For example, we retain the illusion we have power to control a motor vehicle in the event of a front tired blowout at high speed, even though our probability of success is extremely low in reality. In investigating the psychological benefits of control illusion Langer devised an experiment involving a lottery of football cards. Participants who could choose a card (believed they had control) later valued their cards above participants who were given their cards (no illusion of control). When ask to resell their cards the first group demanded a significantly higher price than the second. Yet the benefit derived from having control (choosing the card) was in actuality illusionary. Similarly individuals’ acceptance of risk increases with perceived level of control. Horswill and McKenna (1999) in another cunningly sophisticated experiment exposed drivers to a series of validated video simulations where participants were asked to report their level of comfort with simulated vehicle speed, slower or faster. Half were assigned as drivers (control group) and the remainder passengers. Unsurprisingly the control group indicated an acceptance of higher speed and hence higher risk. Colvin and Block do not dispute the psychological benefits of the illusion of control when the situation the individual is immersed in is in fact controllable (p. ) nevertheless were the situation is essentially uncontrollable, such as malignant terminal cancer, the illusion becomes maladaptive.

Colvin and Block likewise view Taylor and Brown’s third measure of illusion, unrealistic optimism, as being maladaptive. While not disputing that people do display a pattern of unrealistic optimism concerning both negative and positive future events such as; the probability of getting cancer (Perloff & Fetzer, 1986), living past the age of 80 years (Weinstein, 1980) and being involved in a car crash (McKenna, 1993) the authors reject the conclusion drawn by Taylor and Brown that these illusions impact positively on psychological well being. The explanation given for people predicting that negative events are less likely to happen to them than the average person and positive events more likely than average (a logical illusion) is again forwarded by Colvin and Block as human errors in cognitive processing, as previously described. The authors write that there is no “sturdy connection of this illusion with mental health”. Indeed, in case of terminally ill patients unrealistic optimism, “when unfulfilled, has countervailing negative consequences in the form of intense negative affect” (Diener, Colvin, Pavot, & Allman, 1991).   

We can conclude that the critique of the Taylor and Brown’s formulation of mild illusions as being adaptive rests on Colvin and Block’s (fundamental premise that illusions per se are maladaptive (p.14). Colvin and Block live in a Kantian world where ‘lying to oneself’ is a categorical sin (Kant 1788) and illusions or evaluation biases shape the slippery slope to madness. Whereas Taylor and Brown are more prepared to allow the vulnerable Homo sapiens a degree of illusionary well-being in what historically has been a hostile world.   As documented above there is a range of compelling evidence for pervasive, enduring and systematic illusions regarding overly positive self-evaluation, illusions of control and unrealistic optimism. The origin of these biases as ‘cognitive processing errors’ or are independent illusions is not the issue. The real question is to what extent do these cognitive illusions positively contribute to psychological well-being?

Here the literature tends to cluster around research on depression and self evaluation realism with no persuasive link between mild illusion and well-being. If these illusions offer some relief against the realities of life and increase performance in everyday activities it is conceivable manipulations of  these illusions would decrease in performance, for example; by measuring physical effort in propelling a vehicle such as the SEGA tandem race. I would propose that when the illusion of unrealistic optimism is withdrawn (participant are lead to believe will not complete/win the race) followed by withdraw of overly positive self evaluation (false video feedback leads the participants to believe they are performing below average) and finally withdraw of actual control (participants provide physical effort only but no direction thru the tandem bike) that participants performance physically and mentally would become significantly depressed. Withdrawing illusions would decrease the participants’ performance just as withdrawing the car drivers illusions of control and safety would be expected to lower his/her confidence as measured by average driving speed. This being the case mild illusions could be seen as being positively adaptive.

Also see - Japlish, Learning Japanese.

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By David Jones

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