Coping with expectation violations in education: the role of optimism bias and need for cognitive closure

Abstract

Although most individuals experience expectation violations in their educational years, individuals’ coping strategies differ depending on situational and dispositional characteristics with potentially decisive influence on educational outcomes. As a situational characteristic, optimism bias indicates that individuals tend to update their expectations after unexpected positive feedback and to maintain their expectations after unexpected negative feedback. As a dispositional characteristic, a higher need for cognitive closure (NCC) indicates that individuals tend to both update (accommodation) and try to confirm expectations (assimilation) after unexpected negative feedback. To better understand mechanisms behind optimism bias and context-dependent effects of NCC in an educational context, we included controllability (attribution of success/failure to internal or external causes) and self-enhancement (amplifying positive self-relevant aspects) in an experimental case vignettes study. Our sample of n = 249 students was divided into four experimental groups (high/low controllability × positive/negative valence) and read four different case vignettes referring to expectation violations in an educational context. MANCOVA revealed that individuals updated their expectations after unexpected positive feedback only with stronger (vs. weaker) self-enhancement and that individuals maintained their expectations after unexpected negative feedback in controllable (vs. uncontrollable) situations. Furthermore, interindividual differences in NCC interacted with controllability in predicting expectation update. We conclude that considering the influences of controllability and self-enhancement, we can better understand and evaluate the adaptivity of the optimism bias and context-dependent effects of NCC in an educational context.