title: How self-enhancers adapt well to loss: The mediational role of loneliness and social functioning.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The tendency toward unrealistically optimistic self-serving biases, known as trait self-enhancement, has been associated with both adaptive benefits and negative social consequences. This study explored these potential benefits and costs in the context of conjugal bereavement.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study included 94 individuals who had experienced the death of a spouse 1.5-3.0 years prior. The sample (62 female, 32 male) ranged in age from 37 to 60 (M= 51.45,SD= 6.08). To examine benefits, we used relatively objective measures of overall adjustment: structured clinical interviews and ratings from participants' close friends and relatives. To examine social adjustment, we examined friends'/relatives' ratings of the quality of social interactions and the possible mediating roles of perceived loneliness and friend/relative ratings.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Trait self-enhancement was uniformly associated with positive adjustment: relatively lower symptom totals, and friend/relative ratings of both overall better adjustment and better social adjustment. Self-enhancers' low loneliness was found to mediate reduced symptoms. Also, friends'/relatives' ratings of social functioning appeared to mediate self-enhancers' reduced loneliness.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings provide further empirical data to challenge the longstanding assumption that inaccurate self-perception is inherently maladaptive. Authentic benefits may result from mistaken perceptions of oneself by influencing the experience of loneliness and how one is seen by close friends/relatives. Self-enhancement may be an adaptation that provides clinically relevant advantages.
authors.affiliation: Teachers College, Columbia University.
authors.forename: Oscar H
authors.initials: OH
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Teachers College, Columbia University.
authors.forename: George A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Bonanno
keywords: Bereavement; Loneliness; Self-enhancement; Social Adjustment; Symptoms