Many prominent theorists have argued that accurate perceptions of the self, the world, and the future are essential for mental health. Yet considerable research evidence suggests that overly positive selfevaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism are characteristic of normal human thought. Moreover, these illusions appear to promote other criteria of mental health, including the ability to care about others, the ability to be happy or contented, and the ability to engage in productive and creative work. These strategies may succeed, in large part, because both the social world and cognitive-processing mechanisms impose niters on incoming information that distort it in a positive direction; negative information may be isolated and represented in as unthreatening a manner as possible. These positive illusions may be especially useful when an individual receives negative feedback or is otherwise threatened and may be especially adaptive under these circumstances. Decades of psychological wisdom have established contact with reality as a hallmark of mental health. In this view, the well-adjusted person is thought to engage in accurate reality testing, whereas the individual whose vision is clouded by illusion is regarded as vulnerable to, if not already a victim of, mental illness. Despite its plausibility, this viewpoint is increasingly difficult to maintain (cf. Lazarus, 1983). A substantial amount of research testifies to the prevalence of illusion in normal human cognition (see Fiske& Taylor, 1984;Greenwald, 1980; Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Sackeim, 1983; Taylor, 1983). Moreover, these illusions often involve central aspects of the self and the environment and, therefore, cannot be dismissed as inconsequential. In this article, we review research suggesting that certain illusions may be adaptive for mental health and well-being. In particular, we examine evidence that a set of interrelated positive illusions—namely, unrealistically positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism—can serve a wide variety of cognitive, affective, and social functions. We also attempt to resolve the following para

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Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health

Numerous studies show that happy individuals are successful across multiple life domains, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. The authors suggest a conceptual model to account for these findings, arguing that the happiness-success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but also because positive affect engenders success. Three classes of evidence--crosssectional, longitudinal, and experimental--are documented to test their model. Relevant studies are described and their effect sizes combined meta-analytically. The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that positive affect--the hallmark of well-being--may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness. Limitations, empirical issues, and important future research questions are discussed.

/pdf/the-benefits-of-frequent-positive-affect-does-happiness-lead-4k0h6bmoho.pdf

The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?

Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broadenand-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed. Even though research on emotions has this new perspective are featured. My hope is flourished in recent years, investigations that that this article will unlock scientific curiosity expressly target positive emotions remain few and far between. Any review of the psychological literature on emotions will show that psychologists have typically favored negative emotions in theory building and hypothesis testing. In so doing, psychologists have inadvertently marginalized the emotions, such as joy, about positive emotions, not only to test the ideas presented here, but also to build other new models that might illuminate the nature and value of positive emotions. Psychology sorely needs more studies on positive emotions, not simply to level the uneven knowledge bases between negative and positive emotions, but interest, contentment, and love, that share a more critically, to guide applications and pleasant subjective feel. To date, then, psychology's knowledge base regarding positive emotions is so thin that satisfying answers to the question "What good are positive emotions?" have yet to be articulated. This is unfortunate. Experiences of positive emotion are central to human nature and contribute richly to the quality of people's lives (Diener & Larsen,

http://www.gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych3131_spring2015/documents/15.1_Fredrickson1998_WhatGoodarePositiveEmotions.pdf

What Good Are Positive Emotions

This article examines the developmental process of cooperative interorganizational relationships (IORs) that entail transaction-specific investments in deals that cannot be fully specified or controlled by the parties in advance of their execution. A process framework is introduced that focuses on formal, legal, and informal social-psychological processes by which organizational parties jointly negotiate, commit to. and execute their relationship in ways that achieve efficient and equitable outcomes and internal solutions to conflicts when they arise. The framework is elaborated with a set of propositions that explain how and why cooperative IORs emerge, evolve, and dissolve. The propositions have academic implications for enriching interorganizational relationships, transaction cost economics, agency theories, and practical implications for managing the relationship journey.

Developmental Processes of Cooperative Interorganizational Relationships

Issues and outcomes in negotiation and related settings strategies and tactics in negotiation determinants of demands, concessions and contentious behaviour reactions to the other party's behaviour cognitive and decision processes in negotiation the dual concern model and the determinants of problem solving social norms and their impact on negotiation relationships among the negotiating parties the group context of negotiation mediation choices among procedures in social conflict.

Negotiation in Social Conflict

The Influence of Positive Affect and Visual Access on the Discovery of Integrative Solutions in Bilateral Negotiation

INTRODUCTION 532 Other Procedures for Dealing with Opposing Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532 THE STUDY OF NEGOTIATION 533 ISSUES, LIMITS, AND OUTCOMES IN NEGOTIATION . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . .. 535 The Nature of Issues . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .... . . " . . . " . . . .. . . . . . " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535 Options, Limits, and Outcomes . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " . . . . . . "" 535 Determinants of Limits ... . . . . . . . . . " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537 MOTIVATION AND STRATEGY IN N EGOTIATION...... . . . . . . . . . . . . 538 Strategic Choice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538 Motivational Orientations . .. . . . . . . . . " . . " . . . . """",,. """,,",,"".. . . . . 539 The Dual Concern Model . . . . . ... " . . . . . . . . . . "" . . . . . . """". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539 Research on Concession Making .. . . .. . . ... . ... ........ . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . ... ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 543 Research on Contending. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... . .. . 548 Research on Problem Solving . . . . . . . . . . " . . ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550 Conclusions about Motivation and Strategy . .. . . .. . .... ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553 COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN NEGOTIATION 553 Heuristics and Biases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554 Schematic 1nformation Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " . . . . . . ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557 Perspective on the Cognitive Approach """"""""""""""""""""""""""" 559 MEDIATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 56 1 History and Literature . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . .. . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . .. . .... . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . 56 1 Mediation Effectiveness . . .. .... .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Negotiation and mediation

Participants were led to expect either cooperation or conflict, and then performed K. Duncker's (1945) functional-fixedness task (Experiment 1) or E. Rosch's (1975) categorization task (Experiment 2). Those who expected cooperation, compared with those who expected conflict, were more likely to solve Duncker's task and used categories more inclusively, that is, rated low-prototypic exemplars of a category as better members of the category. In Experiment 3, the direct experience of cooperation and conflict had the same effect on categorization. In Experiment 4, participants were classified as having cooperative, competitive, or individualistic social values, and were led to expect either cooperation, conflict, or neither in a control. In the control, cooperators used categories more inclusively than competitors or individualists. Competitors used categories least inclusively in the conflict condition; in the cooperation condition, they used categories most inclusively. These results are interpreted in terms of the possible mediating role of cognitive organization in individual and intergroup conflict resolution.

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/74/5/1300.pdf

Peter J. Carnevale

Papers

Negotiation in Social Conflict

The Influence of Positive Affect and Visual Access on the Discovery of Integrative Solutions in Bilateral Negotiation

Negotiation and mediation

Social values and social conflict in creative problem solving and categorization.

Effects of trust, aspiration, and gender on negotiation tactics.