The false-hope syndrome: Unfulfilled expectations of self-change

Why do people persist in attempting to change themselves, despite repeated failure? Self-change is often perceived as unrealistically easy to achieve, in an unreasonably short period of time. Moreover, embarking on self-chang e attempts induces feelings of control and optimism that supersede the less ons of prior experience. Finally, people tend to expect an unrealistically high payoff from successful self-change. Some sorts of self-change are feas ible, but we must learn to distinguish between realistic and unrealistic se lf-change goals, between confidence and overconfidence. Overconfidence bree ds false hope, which engenders inflated expectations of success and eventua lly the misery of defeat.