Situated Optimism: Specific Outcome Expectancies and Self-Regulation

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the role of specific outcome expectancies in self-regulation. It is observed that specific expectancies are commonly found to be optimistic. The results from studies of specific expectations provide considerable substance to Lewin's paradox that the key to effective self-regulation of behavior and well-being involves the interplay of optimistic expectations and the demands of reality. It is also noted that optimistic expectations can sometimes be disconfirmed. People deal with these disconfirmations by using any of the variety of mechanisms for maintaining optimistic beliefs even in the face of their disconfirmation. Through the combination of relative and strategic optimism and strategies for minimizing the potentially adverse effects of disconfirmations of optimistic expectations, people are able to simultaneously meet the self-regulatory needs to extract meaningful information from their environment and to maintain a positive sense of self. The chapter considers expectancies from different domains and integrates results from a wide variety of empirical paradigms.