Colvin C R, Block J
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley 94720.
Psychol Bull. 1994 Jul;116(1):3-20. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.3.
The proposition recently offered by S. E. Taylor and J. D. Brown (1988) that positive illusions foster mental health has garnered considerable attention and acceptance. However, the significant theoretical and applied implications of their view for mental health require a critical evaluation of their argument. An examination of the logic and empirical evidence used to relate mental health to three key positive illusions--unrealistically positive views of the self, illusions of control, and unrealistic optimism--failed to substantiate Taylor and Brown's thesis. Further survey of more recent studies on positive illusions and mental health also failed to lend support to the Taylor and Brown generalization. Close consideration of several assumptions underlying the formulation raises further questions regarding their thesis. The present article concludes that it remains unproven that positive illusions foster mental health.
S. E. 泰勒和J. D. 布朗（1988年）最近提出的积极错觉促进心理健康的观点已获得了相当多的关注和认可。然而，他们这一观点对心理健康的重大理论和应用意义需要对其论点进行批判性评估。审视用于将心理健康与三种关键的积极错觉——对自我不切实际的积极看法、控制错觉和不切实际的乐观主义——联系起来的逻辑和实证证据，未能证实泰勒和布朗的论点。对近期关于积极错觉与心理健康的研究进行的进一步调查也未能支持泰勒和布朗的概括。对该表述所基于的几个假设进行仔细思考，会引发关于他们论点的更多问题。本文的结论是，积极错觉促进心理健康这一点仍未得到证实。
