Shattering the illusion of control: Multi-shot versus single-shot gambles

The illusion of control refers to a phenomenon whereby people believe their chances of success at a task are greater than would be warranted by objective analysis. This article raises two questions. First, how robust is the illusion of control? Second, how might the illusion be ‘shattered?’ Previous experimental demonstrations involved situations that can be likened to unique or single-shot gambles. If, however, the phenomenon is robust, it should occur in repeated or multi-shot gambles in which the outcome depends on a series of gambles involving the same underlying random process. It should also appear in single-shot gambles that are framed so as to superficially resemble multi-shot gambles. We label this the strong illusion of control hypothesis. On the other hand, because people have a better appreciation of probabilistic concepts in tasks they are able to represent as relative frequencies, the introduction of a multi-shot or ‘pseudo-multi-shot’ context might cue people to the random nature of the task, thereby shattering the illusion. The weak illusion of control hypothesis holds that the illusion of control will occur in single-shot but not in multi-shot or pseudo-multi-shot gambles. Two studies are reported that support the weak hypothesis. Alternative explanations are considered and implications are discussed.     

控制幻觉与人格、动机关系研究

目的本研究考察了人格、动机强弱分别与心理控制幻觉之间的关系。方法采用被试内实验设计的方法,用艾森克人格问卷进行测量。结果与结论动机水平的高低与控制幻觉的形成之间存在明确的关系,即前后动机水平的发生变化,信心分差异显著(t=-3.1,p=0.006<0.05),动机越强则产生控制幻觉的倾向性越大;人格中的外倾性,精神质与心理控制幻觉的产生存在显著的正相关(r=0.766,P<0.01;r=0.827,P<0.01);外倾性这一心理特质对控制幻觉的产生有较强的预测作用。     

Keeping the illusion of control under control: Ceilings, floors, and imperfect calibration

Prior research has claimed that people exaggerate probabilities of success by overestimating personal control in situations that are heavily or completely chance-determined. We examine whether such overestimation of control persists in situations where people do have control. Our results suggest a simple model that accounts for prior findings on illusory control as well as for situations where actual control is high: People make imperfect estimates of their level of control. By focusing on situations marked by low control, prior research has created the illusion that people generally overestimate their level of control. Across three studies, we show that when they have a great deal of control, people under-estimate it. Implications for research on perceived control and co-variation assessment are discussed.     

Let me take the wheel: Illusory control and sense of agency

Illusory control refers to an effect in games of chance where features associated with skilful situations increase expectancies of success. Past work has operationalized illusory control in terms of subjective ratings or behaviour, with limited consideration of the relationship between these definitions, or the broader construct of agency. This study used a novel card-guessing task in 78 participants to investigate the relationship between subjective and behavioural illusory control. We compared trials in which participants (a) had no opportunity to exercise illusory control, (b) could exercise illusory control for free, or (c) could pay to exercise illusory control. Contingency Judgment and Intentional Binding tasks assessed explicit and implicit sense of agency, respectively. On the card-guessing task, confidence was higher when participants exerted control than in the baseline condition. In a complementary model, participants were more likely to exercise control when their confidence was high, and this effect was accentuated in the pay condition relative to the free condition. Decisions to pay were positively correlated with control ratings on the Contingency Judgment task, but were not significantly related to Intentional Binding. These results establish an association between subjective and behavioural illusory control and locate the construct within the cognitive literature on agency.     

Making the uncontrollable seem controllable: The role of action in the illusion of control

It is well known that certain variables can bias judgements about the perceived contingency between an action and an outcome, making them depart from the normative predictions. For instance, previous studies have proven that the activity level or probability of responding, P(R), is a crucial variable that can affect these judgements in objectively noncontingent situations. A possible account for the P(R) effect is based on the differential exposure to actual contingencies during the training phase, which is in turn presumably produced by individual differences in participants' P(R). The current two experiments replicate the P(R) effect in a free-response paradigm, and show that participants' judgements are better predicted by P(R) than by the actual contingency to which they expose themselves. Besides, both experiments converge with previous empirical data, showing a persistent bias that does not vanish as training proceeds. These findings contrast with the preasymptotic and transitory effect predicted by several theoretical models.     

Validation d’une échelle d’évaluation multi-dimensionnelle de l’illusion de contrôle dans les jeux de hasard et d’argent (EEMDIC)

IntroductionThe illusion of control is widely accepted as a key factor in the gambling behaviors. A polysemic concept, its theoretical definition remains debatable, however, and the multitude of measures used to account for it makes it difficult to compare the results of research on it.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to clarify what the illusion of control is and to provide a measure that captures what it is.MethodBy considering the two valences, positive (focusing on gains) and negative (focusing on losses), relating to gambling cognitions, two subscales were thus subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on the data collected from 482 participants (82.78% of women, M_age = 36.5, SD_age = 12.31).ResultsThe results reveal that a 4-factor solution (absolute luck/series law; skills, knowledge and strategies; superstitious rituals and behaviours; personal luck/misfortune) allows us to describe the sample data for each of the two subscales. Polynomial regressions with response surface analyses make the case for presenting the two subscales simultaneously (matrix format). These analyses also show that the illusion of control is linked to gambling habits through the interaction of positive and negative valences. In particular, individuals gamble more frequently when they simultaneously attribute more their winnings and less their losses to luck.ConclusionsThe usefulness of this new tool, which addresses the illusion of control by a direct measurement of its dimensions and an indirect measurement of its affective structure, is discussed both in terms of research and practice, since it would make it possible to orient care.     

The influence of desire for control on drivers' risk-taking behaviour

Increases in perceived control over the driving task are known to increase intended driving speeds. Also, some people like being in control more than others. In the present study, we compared drivers with a high desire for control and drivers with a low desire for control, as measured on Burger and Cooper's (1979) [Motivation and Emotion 3 (4) (1979) 381] Desirability of Control Scale. Using validated video simulation techniques, we found that drivers with a high desire for control intended to drive at faster speeds and were willing to pull out into smaller gaps in traffic. We discuss the results in terms of an illusion of control and we describe implications for road safety interventions.     

Active involvement,not illusory control,increases risk taking in a gambling game

The research considers the influence of choice (the possibility for the player to choose a gamble or another) and involvement (the physical interaction with the gambling device) on risk taking in gambling games and whether this influence is mediated by illusory control over the outcome of the gamble. Results of a laboratory experiment (n = 100) show that (a) although choice does increase illusory control, this influence does not translate in increased risk taking, and (b) whilst involvement does increase risk taking, this effect is not mediated by illusory control. These results are discussed in relation to problem gambling, beliefs in the deployability of personal luck, and arousal approaches to risk taking.     

Emotional and motivational reactions to failure: the role of illusions of control and explicitness of feedback

Previous research has found that illusions of control (IOC) can buffer against the emotional consequences of failure and may increase persistence in the face of failure. Theoretical analyses suggest that IOC are most closely related to a better mood and higher motivation if failure feedback is open to reinterpretation. Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that explicitness (vs. ambiguousness) of failure feedback moderates the consequences of IOC following a failure experience. In accord with predictions, it was found that IOC were subsequently related to a better mood (Study 1) and higher persistence (Study 2) if individuals received ambiguous task-inherent failure feedback. In contrast, explicit failure feedback seemed to neutralize the beneficial effects of IOC. These results are discussed with respect to the adaptiveness of IOC.

Illusory control as a function of the motivation to avoid randomly determined aversive outcomes

Previous research has provided evidence that the need to attain appetitive outcomes positively affects the certainty of winning that outcome in purely chance-based games. Three experiments were conducted to test the notion that the need to avoid an aversive outcome affects winning confidence in the same fashion. In Experiment 1, participants were given the opportunity to avoid having to give an introductory remark (low need) or an impromptu speech (high need) to a group of peers by winning a chance-based card-drawing game. As predicted, confidence-in-winning ratings were found to be a positive function of outcome need. In Experiment 2, participants faced a similar card-drawing procedure but this time could avoid ostensibly having their arms submersed in either room temperature water (low need) or cold water (high need) need. Again as expected, results showed that participants in the high need condition not only displayed greater winning confidence but also believed more skill was involved in playing the purely chance-based game. In Experiment 3, the methodology of Experiment 1 was replicated incorporating a skill measure. The results of this experiment mirrored those of Experiment 2. Results of these investigations are discussed in terms of control theory.

Unconscious modulation of the conscious experience of voluntary control

How does the brain generate our experience of being in control over our actions and their effects? Here, we argue that the perception of events as self-caused emerges from a comparison between anticipated and actual action-effects: if the representation of an event that follows an action is activated before the action, the event is experienced as caused by one's own action, whereas in the case of a mismatch it will be attributed to an external cause rather than to the self. In a subliminal priming paradigm we show that participants overestimated how much control they had over objectively uncontrollable stimuli, which appeared after free- or forced-choice actions, when a masked prime activated a representation of the stimuli immediately before each action. This prime-induced control-illusion was independent from whether primes were consciously perceived. Results indicate that the conscious experience of control is modulated by unconscious anticipations of action-effects.     

Differential effects of a visual illusion on online visual guidance in a stable environment and online adjustments to perturbations

In the reported, experiment participants hit a ball to aim at the vertex of a Müller–Lyer configuration. This configuration either remained stable, changed its shaft length or the orientation of the tails during movement execution. A significant illusion bias was observed in all perturbation conditions, but not in the stationary condition. The illusion bias emerged for perturbations shortly after movement onset and for perturbations during execution, the latter of which allowed only a minimum of time for making adjustments (i.e., approx.170 ms). These findings indicate that allocentric information is exploited for online control when people make rapid adjustments in response to a sudden change in the environment and not when people guide their limb movements to interact with a stable environment.     

Evidence for the specificity of control motivations in worldview defense: Distinguishing compensatory control from uncertainty management and terror management processes

Research inspired by the compensatory control model (CCM) shows that people compensate for personal control threats by bolstering aspects of the cultural worldview that afford external control. According to the CCM these effects stem from the motivation to maintain perceived order, but it is alternatively possible that they represent indirect efforts to bolster distally related psychological structures described by uncertainty management theory (self-relevant certainty) and terror management theory (death-transcendence). To assess whether compensatory control processes play a unique role in worldview defense, we hypothesized that personal control threats would increase affirmation of cultural constructs that specifically bolster order more so than constructs that bolster distally related structures. The results of 5 studies provide converging support for this hypothesis in the context of attitudes toward diverse cultural constructs (Study 1: national culture; Studies 2 and 3: consumer products;  and : political candidates). Also supporting hypotheses, uncertainty salience and mortality salience elicited greater affirmation of identity- and immortality-conferring targets, respectively, compared to order-conferring constructs. Discussion focuses on the value of different perspectives on existential motivation for predicting specific forms of worldview defense.     

Pricing risk and ambiguity: The effect of perspective taking

In the valuation of uncertain prospects, a difference is often observed between selling and buying perspectives. This paper distinguishes between risk (known probabilities) and ambiguity (unknown probabilities) in decisions under uncertainty and shows that the valuation disparity increases under ambiguity compared to risk. It is found that both the comparative versus noncomparative evaluation of risky and ambiguous prospects and the uniqueness of the valuation perspective (either seller or buyer) moderate this increase in the disparity under ambiguity. The finding is consistent with recent theoretical accounts of pricing under uncertainty. We discuss implications for market behaviour and for the ambiguity paradigm as a research tool.     

Common and distinct factors in decision making under ambiguity and risk: A psychometric study of individual differences

The relation between decision making under ambiguity and risky decision making was examined. In Studies 1 and 2, choices under ambiguity were measured for a large sample receiving an Ellsberg-type Ambiguity-Probability Tradeoff Task. Participants with extreme scores were recruited for Part 2 of each study which consisted of a risky decision making task (Study 1) or a series of decisions under ambiguity in “real life” scenarios (Study 2). Despite a time gap of up to 2 months, individual differences in scores on Part 1 predicted scores on Part 2. In Study 3 participants received in a single session several risky decision making tasks, several measures of decision making under ambiguity, and several personality scales related to uncertainty and decision making style. Taken together, the findings support the existence of a stable dispositional trait to reduce uncertainty in decision making but also task-specific differences related to gains and losses.     

Spatial limits on the nonvisual self-touch illusion and the visual rubber hand illusion: Subjective experience of the illusion and proprioceptive drift

The nonvisual self-touch rubber hand paradigm elicits the compelling illusion that one is touching one’s own hand even though the two hands are not in contact. In four experiments, we investigated spatial limits of distance (15 cm, 30 cm, 45 cm, 60 cm) and alignment (0°, 90° anti-clockwise) on the nonvisual self-touch illusion and the well-known visual rubber hand illusion. Common procedures (synchronous and asynchronous stimulation administered for 60 s with the prosthetic hand at body midline) and common assessment methods were used. Subjective experience of the illusion was assessed by agreement ratings for statements on a questionnaire and time of illusion onset. The nonvisual self-touch illusion was diminished though never abolished by distance and alignment manipulations, whereas the visual rubber hand illusion was more robust against these manipulations. We assessed proprioceptive drift, and implications of a double dissociation between subjective experience of the illusion and proprioceptive drift are discussed.     

Skill-set,success outcome,and mania as determinants of the illusion of control

The illusion of control, the tendency for individuals to approach chance tasks with skill-appropriate strategies, was studied. Subjects premeasured on a mania scale were classified as either high (HM) or low (LM) in mania. In the first phase of the study, HM and LM subjects performed 30 trials on either a skill (verbal associates) or chance (coin-toss) task and were given either 20, 50, or 80% success feedback. After Task 1 was completed, subjects filled out an attribution questionnaire. In the final phase of the study, subjects anticipated 30 more trials either on a skill or chance task. Subjects' predicted successes were measured. It was hypothesized that predicted successes on anticipated skill and chance tasks would be affected more by outcomes on a previous skill task than by outcomes on a previous chance task. The results for the anticipated skill task directly supported the hypothesis. On the anticipated chance task, the hypothesis was confirmed for HM subjects only. The results are discussed in terms of how previous skill experiences may induce a set to control ungovernable situations for individuals with manic reactions.