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Positive Illusions

Positive illusions are unrealistically favorable attitudes that people have towards themselves. There are 3 broad kinds of positive illusions:

1. illusory superiority (inflated assessment of one's own abilities)

2. unrealistic optimism in their abilities to control outcomes (optimism bias)

3. illusion of control.

The term "positive illusions" originates in a 1988 paper by Taylor and Brown.

Kruger, Justin; Steven Chan, Neal Roese (2009). "(Not so) positive illusions". Behavioral and Brain Sciences (Cambridge University Press) 32 (6): 526–527. doi:10.1017/S0140525X09991270.