POSITIVE ILLUSIONS ABOUT ONESELF AND ONES GROUP - ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES

This study examined antecedents (rewards and threats to self-esteem) a nd consequences (group conflict and performance) of self- and group-en hancing positive illusions. Hypotheses regarding the magnitude of thes e illusions were derived from attention-based and self-esteem-based ex planations for why people engage in positive illusions. The authors te sted these hypotheses in a laboratory experiment in which 408 subjects performed a decision-making task both individually and in a group. Re sults showed that threats to self-esteem affected the magnitude of ill usions more than rewards, the two types of illusions differentially af fected group conflict and performance, and self and group-enhancing il lusions were positively related. The authors discuss several implicati ons of their results and of simultaneously studying illusions about bo th oneself and one's group.