WEBVTT - The Illusion of Control, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.160 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:15.800 is Robert. 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.840 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and today we are 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.840 back to continue our series on the psychology concept known 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:28.360 as the illusion of control. This is a cognitive illusion 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.400 or a common error in thinking and judgment, in which 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:36.280 we overestimate the amount of control we have over outcomes 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.720 in the world, even outcomes that are in no way 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.479 determined by our actions. So if you haven't heard part one, 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.440 you should probably go back and listen to that first. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.600 But for a brief recap. We talked about some examples 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.199 last time of the illusion of control. One would be 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.640 the belief that you can control your chances of winning 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.320 at a slot machine based on who presses the the 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.960 button and how when actually you know it's a purely 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.360 random process. There's no like. You know, you can't be 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.640 like better at working a slot machine. But other examples 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.560 would include like the belief that you can improve your 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.640 chances of hitting a desired number on a dice throw 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.039 by concentrating before the throw. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.840 I do this, yeah, yeah, and yeah, I was going 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:23.160 to save this for a listener mail, but I go 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.759 ahead and mention it. Now heard from a listener on 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:30.720 Discord who pointed out this is I believe it's pass cish. 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.560 I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, use your name, 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.720 but anyway, may point it out that in Dungeons and 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.600 Dragons there's an additional element here that we didn't touch on, 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.960 and that's the drama of rolling your dice, of rolling 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.880 that D twenty, doing that saving throw. You may put 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.600 some concentration into it, not because not as much because 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.960 you're hoping to influence the roll, but because this matters, 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.920 This is an important role. Perhaps the life or death 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.200 of your character may hinge on the outcome. You can 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:01.160 play it up a little bit. 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.000 Yeah, it's a socially performative drum roll. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.320 But I think undeniably there's off also that sense of like, 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:09.560 all right, NAT twenty, let's do it. 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:10.640 I can do this. 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:12.840 Yeah. 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.560 Other examples would be like the belief that you can 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.760 influence the outcome of a sporting event hundreds of miles 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.080 away by wearing a lucky charm. We talked about the 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.919 childhood belief that you can control gameplay on a video 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.920 game with like a controller, that's not plugged in, or 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.040 by moving the joystick on a on an arcade cabinet, 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:33.440 you haven't put any quarters in. 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:34.240 Yeah. 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.760 Yeah, And we also ended up talking about an influential 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.120 early paper on the illusion of control from nineteen seventy 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.280 five called the Illusion of Control in the Journal of 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:49.160 Personality and Social Psychology by the American psychologist Ellen J. Langer. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.760 And for a quick summary of this paper, it used 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:58.800 experiments involving games of chance with superficial elements inserted from 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:03.000 games of skill to see if people would behave consistent 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.320 with a belief that they had impossible levels of control 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.640 over chance outcomes. And this study found that yes, in 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.520 its experiments, people did behave in a way that was 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:19.800 consistent with overestimating their level of control over chance determined outcomes. However, 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.119 the thing about this paper was the experiments did use 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.720 indirect methods of studying the phenomenon, so these results came 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.760 with some limitations that I'll describe in just a minute. 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.600 I wanted to learn some more about the history of 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.520 how the illusion of control has been studied, because there 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.680 have been tons of papers on this, tons of experiments, 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.600 and I wanted to kind of general overview, so I 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.400 turned to a very helpful book chapter by a psychologist 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:52.080 named Suzanne C. Thompson. The chapter is called Illusions of 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:56.680 Control and it appears in a book called Cognitive Illusions 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.400 edited by Rudiger F. Pohl published by Psychology Press twenty sixteen, 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:04.120 though the version I read seems to have been an 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.680 updated edition because it included references to more recent studies, 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.440 such as one paper from twenty twenty one. So in 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.680 this overview, Thompson uses a broader definition of the illusion 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.800 of control than Langer did. Langer's definition was specifically about 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:27.000 seeking desired outcomes in chance determined events. Thompson says, instead, quote, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:32.640 illusions of control occur when individuals overestimate their personal influence 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.920 influence over an outcome. So that's a more general way 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:38.960 of stating it. You know, maybe your influence could be 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.400 good or bad. It could be in getting something you 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:42.840 want or in something you don't want. 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.279 Yeah, so this broader definition could apply to like various 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.360 games that have some sort of random element that you 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.040 truly can't control. For you may be really great at 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.600 the game, but you have this added level of illusion 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:55.599 of control that thinks that you can you can definitely 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.480 navigate any random occurrence. And I guess you could also 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.760 apply it even to interperson relationships, you know, thinking that 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.360 you have more control over other people in your circle 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:06.000 than you do. 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.040 Right, because this idea would also apply to things where 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.960 you do have some control, but you're imagining you have 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.320 more control than you actually do. And Thompson says that 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.200 since the origins of this research in the nineteen seventies, 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:23.920 there have been basically three different ways of experimentally demonstrating 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.680 that people experience illusory control. There's like three branches of 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.520 experiments on this tree. So approach number one that she 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:37.239 outlines is the main example here is the original research 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.760 by Ellen Langer, which we already described in the last episode. 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:46.440 This general strategy involves gauging people's guesses about their likelihood 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.680 of success in chance games that have superficial elements of 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.760 skill games introduced. So to emphasize again, this approach does 0:05:54.839 --> 0:06:00.400 not actually directly measure people's perceptions of control. Instead, these 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.400 experiments would kind of infer it from their behavior in 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.480 a game. So you see that people bet more money, 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.880 that suggests they think they have more control over the outcome. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.640 But it's possible there's another factor operating there, so there's 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:19.000 less certainty that you're testing for the variable you're actually 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:23.680 looking for. And Thompson explains some other ways of doing 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.760 these kind of tests apart from like Langer's original experimental design. 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.599 One thing she talks about is a type of study 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:36.359 that you could call like observer participant discrepancies. So an 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.600 example of this would be you get a test group, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.400 you know, maybe a classroom of students or whatever, and 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.160 you split them up into pairs, and you give each 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.919 pair of subjects a random number generating apparatus, maybe a 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.440 die that's a simple one. So in each pair, there's 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.640 one person who gets to roll the die, and the 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.400 other person records all the numbers that they roll, and 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:03.800 participants do this like twenty times, and then across the 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.240 whole test group, whichever pair in the group has the 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:11.680 highest total sum of roles wins a cash prize, and 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:16.640 both subjects in each pair guess their likelihood of winning 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.240 before the game. Thompson says that if you try to 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.480 replicate this sort of experiment with students, you will usually 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.880 find that subjects, on average rate their chance of winning 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.840 a little bit higher if they're the one rolling the 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.480 die than if they're the one recording the roles. Again, 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.280 that should not make a difference. So even though we 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.480 both rationally know that the outcome is random, it just 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:44.920 feels a little luckier if I'm the one doing it. However, 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.240 and I thought this was interesting. Thompson says that some 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.200 research has found that this effect can be reduced or 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:56.160 even neutralized completely by the context of the game, for example, 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.640 if it takes place in a classroom that has previously 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:04.200 discs us the correct way to estimate probability on games 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:09.000 like this. And that was interesting to me because it 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:13.320 made me think about how people overcome cognitive biases and 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:18.160 cognitive illusions. You know, sometimes the unfortunate fact is that 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.080 simply being aware of a cognitive illusion, like knowing that 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.720 sometimes our brains have a certain kind of bias, is 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.400 not sufficient to keep us from falling for that bias. 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.679 So you can, like know about the tricks your brain plays, 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.000 and you can fall for them anyway. It happens to 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.000 all of us, but in every case. 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.800 And this obviously applies to many other aspects of the 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:45.120 human psyche as well. I mean awareness, self awareness is 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.559 often the first step, but that doesn't mean you've completely 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.480 defeated the illusion or illusion that you are having to 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.080 deal with exactly. 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.880 This is true for everybody, but in other cases, and 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.880 it varies from case to case. So in some cases, 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:04.600 research has shown that we can be successfully inoculated mentally 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.160 from certain irrational tendencies by being made aware of them, 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:10.560 and this seems to be one of those cases. You 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.400 can sometimes neutralize illusions of control just by like having 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.959 a context in which people have already been reminded about 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.960 how probabilities work. And I think that's interesting because you 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:29.160 might naturally assume that the variable in resistance to cognitive 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.720 illusions like the illusion of control is the person you know, 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.080 like permanent features of a person's personality, and you might 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.959 be inclined to think like, well, a more rational person 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.040 is better able to overcome their biases and think clearly. 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:45.640 But I don't know if that's always the case. I 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:50.200 wonder if it's really more about setting and context. Maybe 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:55.240 setting and context are equally, if not more, powerful predictors 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.160 of how well people overcome cognitive illusions. In other words, 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.760 does like currently being in the setting of a statistics 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:07.800 class inoculate you against the illusion of control better than 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.160 being a person who is generally aware of cognitive illusions. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.680 I don't know the answer for sure there, but it 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:18.079 seems worth considering rather than just defaulting to the explanation 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:24.120 of permanent internal personality based differences. But anyway, so to 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.439 move on, That was approach number one. Experimental approach number 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:32.360 two is different. In this type of experiment, you give 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:38.160 subjects a laboratory task where researchers can program exactly how 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.840 much control the subject actually has, and in many of 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.360 these experiments the subject has zero control. Sometimes they have 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.040 more control, and then you ask the subject how much 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.520 control they think they had. So an experiment typical of 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.000 this type is one that was done by Alloy and 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.840 Abrahamson in nineteen seventy nine, in which subjects would be 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.120 given a button to press and they're told to see 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.160 if they can use that button to control whether or 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.160 not a light comes on, and then they're asked to 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.520 judge at the end what amount of control they think 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.240 the button had over the light. In reality, the light 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.880 had no relationship to whether the button was pressed or not. 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.280 It was simply programmed to come on at some fixed 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.280 percentage of the trials with each subject, and unsurprisingly even 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.640 though it had nothing to do with whether the button 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.000 was pushed or not, or when subjects broadly thought they 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.480 had some amount of control, and experiments when the light 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.600 came on more frequently but again unconnected to the button, 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.080 caused people to believe that they had more control over 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.280 the light. So, at least in some cases, it seems 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:53.160 like success at getting a desired outcome makes people more 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.319 likely to believe they have control over that outcome, whether 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.720 or not they do. And while at the risk of 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.440 over extrapolating from a very contained laboratory outcome, this does 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.080 sort of suggest to me connections to behaviors in the world, 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.160 Like you know, when somebody has very good fortune at 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:16.840 a particular juncture, they're like, yep, that was all me. Later, 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.240 Thompson describes another version of this kind of test. This 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.320 one is called the computer screen on set task. And 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.160 so in this test, like you sit in front of 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.040 a computer and you're looking at a screen, and the 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.160 screen will sequentially produce a series of forty images, and 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.240 all of these images are either a green X or 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.120 a red O. And with each new screen, you can 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.760 choose to press a button or not press a button, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.959 and your goal is to make the green X appear 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:46.839 as many times as possible, so people will be trying 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.360 to figure out if there's some pattern like pressing the 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.400 button or not, you know, pressing it or not in 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:56.800 what sequence, etc. That'll make the greenexes appear. Actually, once again, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.800 the button has no relation whatsoever to whether the symbols 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.240 here on the screen. The button doesn't do anything, and 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.160 you can vary what percentage of each symbol the subjects get. 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.240 At the end of the test, you have them rate 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.360 on a scale of zero to one hundred how much 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.640 control they think they had over what appeared on the screen. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.920 People who got the green ex seventy five percent of 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.000 their random screens believed that they had a lot of 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:22.439 control over the display. 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.160 This is also interesting to think of in terms of 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.920 the example we discussed in the last episode about as 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.040 a child thinking you had control over a video game. Yeah, 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.760 maybe this doesn't play out. I'd be interesting to hear 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.240 from folks much younger than me. But looking back on 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.920 the video games that I was doing this on, like 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:47.280 these were the old school arcade games where it was 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.480 maybe a little more directly comparable to just pressing a 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.040 button and seeing a random o or an ax on 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.000 the screen, like there was a lot more room to 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.880 ask the question, Am I controlling it? I have fifty 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.120 percent chance I am. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.360 In a way, I'm almost nostalgic for that mindset, Like 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.320 there's something kind of beautiful about the ambiguity of wondering 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.160 if you're controlling what's happening on the screen. I feel 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.720 like maybe I'm wrong about this. I feel like I 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.120 wouldn't fall for that now, but I kind of wish 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:18.040 I could, because it suggests a more I don't know, 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.040 just kind of like totally radically opened state of mind 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.640 in which anything is possible, a more magical way of 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:25.680 relating to the world. 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.560 It's a cheaper way to go about going to the arcade, 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.640 you know. I wonder what they would think if if 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:32.760 there was an adult who regularly came into the arcade 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:34.800 and they're like, oh man, he never spends anything. He 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.000 just stands at the machines and pretends to play. 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.800 Yeah, just toggling the joystick at the demo. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:44.480 It's great, I gotta sell this guy's nacho do something Okay? 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.440 Anyway, that's approach number two. These very tightly controlled laboratory experiments. 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:52.080 Approach number three is different. Once again, you get people 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.920 to report their judgments of control in real life scenarios. 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.360 An example here is a study by McKenna in nineteen 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.479 ninety three. Not that McKenna different. 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.280 McCay, I think this is Frank P. McKenna. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:08.520 Yeah. Ask participants to rate the likelihood that, compared to 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:13.920 other drivers, they would experience an auto collision, and they 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:17.280 were asked to judge this when imagining themselves as the 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:22.760 driver versus imagining themselves as the passenger. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.720 people thought that accidents would be relatively less likely if 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:27.600 they were the driver. 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.360 This absolutely matches up with my experience. You know, even 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.160 when I'm in the car with a driver that I 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.400 definitely trust and even know that they are a better 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:40.240 driver than me, you know, maybe they have more experience 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.480 or they've undergone training, they're still like that gut feeling 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.680 of like I am not actually in control. I can't 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.120 hit the brake when I see the brake lights ahead 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.440 getting closer, and therefore I feel like a little more 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.240 anxious about the whole scenario oftentimes, like realizing that this 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.320 is irrational, but feeling it Nonetheless. 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:00.960 I totally relate to that. I feel that too the 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.600 same thing. It's not like I actually think this other 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.160 person is a more dangerous driver than me. I just 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.640 it's just hard to get over that feeling. In a 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:14.120 second study, in this McKenna paper, participants were asked about 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.920 specific types of collisions, those that would seem to involve 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.960 either more or less driver control. So they were talking 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.920 about like rear ending someone versus being rear ended versus 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.680 having a tire blowout, And the idea was rear ending 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:34.000 someone is generally thought to be largely subject to driver control. 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.560 Of course, we know that there are factors that other 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.920 factors that can intervene, breaks, could fail whatever, whereas getting 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.600 rear ended seems to be out of the driver's hands, 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.640 and people were highly likely to say that they were 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.400 less likely to have the type of collision in which 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.040 the driver was in control has high control, So I 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.440 am much less likely than other people to rear end someone. 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.800 Whether it's me or someone else, makes less difference in 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:01.920 getting rear ended. 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:03.600 Quote. 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.680 Thus, people show illusory control over avoiding an accident by 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.520 assuming that they will be able to exert control that 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:12.680 others cannot. 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:14.919 And I guess this is what's in play when you 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:19.719 see drivers so many drivers just riding bumpers through terrifyingly 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.320 fast traffic all the time, like they just maybe they 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.400 have just heightened control over things. But I would tend 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:26.879 to doubt it. 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.439 Yeah, that would be dangerous if someone else did it. 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:31.080 But I can handle it. 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.359 I alone can weave in and out of traffic and 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.200 make it to my destination two minutes ahead of schedule. 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.159 So this type of experiment is taken to show that 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.600 people have an illusion of control when they consider themselves 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.359 relative to other people. A driver has some degree of 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.560 control over whether they end up in a collision on average, 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.280 people think that they are better able to avoid that 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.440 outcome than other people are. And so looking back over 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.320 these three methodologies, Thompson says, you know each of them 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.240 have strengths and weaknesses. So approach number one kind of 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.959 the Langer approach. The pros are that it uses realistic 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.600 situations that people engage in every day, like lottery drawings 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.720 and games and stuff. And also it has the pro 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.840 that the indirect measure can help detect an illusory belief 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.560 in control that does in reality guide behavior, but which 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.479 people might resist admitting if they were asked directly, And 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.439 that does seem big to me. It helps avoid like 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.639 people tailoring their answers to avoid embarrassment. Cons on the 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.760 other hand, are it's indirect, so it doesn't test whether 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.879 control is really the deciding factor. You kind of have 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.440 to infer that and wonder if other factors could be 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.639 contributing as well. Approach number two the laboratory experiments like 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.240 Alloy and Abramson with like you know, the light coming on, 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.280 or the greenexes and red o's on the computer screen. 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.399 The pros of that are that the dependent variable is 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.480 definitely judgment of control, like it's a very tightly controlled experiment. 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.840 Cons would be that these tasks do not have what 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:13.240 psychologists call external validity, so they're like weird tasks with 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.399 no close analogy in our day to day lives, so 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.160 they might not be telling us how people would actually 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.159 behave in reality. They might just be like producing a 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.119 weird kind of behavior that's specific to the lab task. 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.440 Approach number three the self reporting of control judgments about 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:35.240 everyday activities like driving Ala McKenna. Pros are this does 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:40.440 have external validity. Cons are it relies on reflective self reporting, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.119 which can be subject to all kinds of biases. You 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:44.960 know when you're trying to when you ask people to 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:49.520 self report on their own judgments about their lives. However, 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.600 Thompson says that a strength of illusion of control research 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.160 is that even though these methodologies all have their strengths 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:00.720 and weaknesses, they mostly point to a similar conclusion, which 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.240 is the fact that on average, people believe we have 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.880 more control over outcomes than we actually do. And there 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.080 do seem to be some doubts about in exactly what 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.320 scenarios this applies and what causes it, but the core 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.280 finding seems fairly robust, though I'm going to talk about 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.040 one paper later in this episode that has some theoretical 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:26.639 criticisms of how this research and how these experimental findings 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:39.640 are framed. So it seems there probably is an illusion 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.760 of control, especially for outcomes that we have very little 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.200 control over. But it would be very surprising if people 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.280 showed an illusory belief in control over all variables in 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.640 all situations equally. So there has to be some more 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.960 granular research on like when illusions of control happen, Like 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.040 what are the kinds of things is that we think 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.600 we have more control of than others, more illusory control 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:08.480 over than others, and what kind of situations or states 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.879 can we be in that heighten this illusion? And to 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:16.520 continue with Thompson's overview, Thompson highlights seven variables that have 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.560 been studied and found to affect the illusion of control. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:22.240 This list does not mean that these are the only 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.040 factors influencing it. It's just that these have been studied 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.040 well enough to discuss in this book chapter. So the 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:32.359 first one is skill related factors. Now, this was a 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.919 major part of the original nineteen seventy five paper by Langer. 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.760 A lot of studies have found that if a situation 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:45.120 has features we associate with dependence on skill, we're more 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.960 likely to experience an illusion of control. And examples of 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:55.399 these features could include quote, familiarity, making choices, active engagement 0:21:55.440 --> 0:22:01.080 with the material, competition, and four knowledge. Talked about several 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.680 of these in the previous episode. For example, familiarity you 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.520 know you might be more inclined to think you have 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.639 control over the outcome of a chance game if you 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.760 are familiar with the game, or if there are elements 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.399 of the game that are familiar to you. And this 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.320 is generally true of skill based games, but wouldn't affect 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.119 chance based games. One of these variables, though, actually there 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:25.440 was a twenty twenty one paper that casts some doubt 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.840 over whether it affects illusions of control, and that variable 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.639 is choice. So the original idea is that if you 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.600 have a choice to make, that gives you illusions of control. 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.680 An example would be a lottery type game. So imagine 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.600 a game where you buy a lottery ticket. The ticket 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:46.080 has a random series of numbers on it, and you 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.080 win a prize if the winning number matches your ticket. 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.399 Now consider the same game, except you get to pick 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.720 your ticket numbers. Maybe you can use your lucky number, 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:58.680 which of course is the ISBN for the novelization of 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.159 Halloween three Season of the World, which by Jack Martin. 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:02.800 To your number, that's the one you play. 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:06.439 It's got to be what could be a luckier number? 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.679 Happy Happy Halloween. Now, of course, in a fair lottery like, 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:12.359 whatever the number is, it makes no difference whatsoever to 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:15.720 your chance of winning. Winning numbers are selected randomly. No 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.160 number has a higher chance of victory than any other. 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:21.159