Prior studies showed that optimism has positive benefits for students in higher education. However, research indicates different types of optimism, including the unrealistic optimism associated with the illusion of control. The literature review showed a lack of research on the effect of the illusion of control among students in higher education. Two studies were conducted to fill this gap. In Study 1 (N = 210), university students responded to two surveys: one before oral presentations in class (measuring illusion of control and unrealistic optimism) and another after they received their grades for the presentations (measuring disconfirmation and satisfaction). The results show that the illusion of control is positively associated with unrealistic optimism, which leads to disconfirmation and dissatisfaction. Study 2 was a between-subjects design experiment (condition (N = 102) vs. control (N = 102)) that tested a stimulus to mitigate the illusion of control in this context. The results of Study 2 show that explaining to students their inability to control some variables during the presentation helps to reduce the illusion of control. This influences lower unrealistic optimism and disconfirmation, leading to higher satisfaction after the presentations. When testing moderating effects of demographics among these relationships, we found that gender moderates the effect of the stimulus used to reduce the illusion of control, with females showing a significantly higher decrease in this bias in comparison with male students. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations that can help to decrease the illusion of control in the context of higher education, with benefits for students and educators.

先前的研究表明，乐观对高等教育中的学生有积极的好处。然而，研究表明存在不同类型的乐观情绪，包括与控制幻觉相关的不切实际的乐观情绪。文献综述表明，缺乏对高等教育中学生控制错觉影响的研究。进行了两项研究来填补这一空白。在研究 1（N  = 210）中，大学生回答了两项调查：一项是在课堂口头陈述之前（衡量控制错觉和不切实际的乐观情绪），另一项是在他们收到陈述成绩后（衡量否定和满意度）。结果表明，控制幻觉与不切实际的乐观情绪呈正相关，从而导致怀疑和不满。研究 2 是一项受试者间设计实验（条件 ( N  = 102) 与控制 ( N  = 102)），测试刺激以减轻这种情况下的控制错觉。研究 2 的结果表明，向学生解释他们在演示过程中无法控制某些变量有助于减少控制错觉。这会降低不切实际的乐观情绪和否定情绪，从而提高演讲后的满意度。当测试人口统计学对这些关系的调节作用时，我们发现性别调节了用于减少控制幻觉的刺激的效果，与男学生相比，女性在这种偏见的减少方面显着更高。基于这些发现，我们提供了一些建议，有助于减少高等教育背景下的控制幻觉，从而使学生和教育工作者受益。