WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Illusion of Control, Part 3 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:09.240 Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.800 name is Joe McCormick. Today, Rob and I are out, 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.240 so we are bringing you the third and final part 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:19.400 in our Vault series on the illusion of control. This 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:24.000 episode originally aired on February thirteenth, twenty twenty four. Let's 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:24.760 dive right in. 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.560 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.360 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:43.400 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.600 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.000 three in our series on the psychology concept known as 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.240 the illusion of control. This is a cognitive illusion, meaning 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.480 a common type of error in thinking and judgment that 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.760 has been studied fairly intend going back to about the 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:06.840 nineteen seventies. So, according to most of the illusion of 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.720 control literature, humans on average have a tendency too believe 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.319 we have some level of control over outcomes that are 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.800 completely outside of our influence, such as the outcome of 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.600 a lottery and other games of chance. And in situations 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:26.280 where we do have some control but not total control, 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.000 we on average believe that we have more control than 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.200 we do, according to illusion of control theory. Now, if 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.360 you haven't heard the other two episodes already. You should 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.080 probably go back and listen to them first. They'll help 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:40.679 bring you up to speed for today. But we'll do 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:42.839 a brief recap on what we talked about the last 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.120 couple of times. First of all, just to illustrate the 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.720 idea of illusion of control, we talked about ways that 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:53.920 you might see people expressing or illustrating their illusions of 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.840 control in everyday life, such as the way we concentrate 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.240 on a dice throw as if they will this like 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.440 increase our chances of hitting the number we want, or 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:07.320 maybe pressing the door close button on an elevator after 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.639 somebody else has already pushed it. Questionable whether the first 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.360 press actually does anything. The second one's just ridiculous, you know, 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.519 But sometimes we just feel that way. We're in a hurry, 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.320 and we feel like this other guy he couldn't make 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.720 it happen, couldn't close the doors, but I can. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.800 That's right. I mean these two examples alone, along with 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.440 the walk button at crosswalks, I think we can all 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.239 relate to these on one level or another. 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.519 But another one that's been observed in research is when 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.800 driving a car, thinking that you will somehow be able 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:44.519 to avoid an auto collision by exerting some vague type 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.680 of control that other drivers are not capable of. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.040 I mean, I often think that other drivers are incapable 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.519 of a lot when I'm observing their driving. But were 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.200 talking about very specific things here, or we're getting into 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:03.480 that that realm of control that goes above and beyond 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.520 just being able to drive your car safely and correctly. 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.040 Yeah, I mean, it's true I feel the same way 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.760 when driving, and yet at the same time, for everybody 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.600 else in the world, I am one of the other drivers. 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.680 I mean, I don't know. I see a lot of 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:21.959 not using turn signals, et cetera out there. Some people 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.239 seem in capable of that. But this need not be 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.519 a tie rate about other people's driving. 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.160 Now, in part two of the series, we talked about 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.040 a bunch of different types of experiments that have found 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.560 various sorts of evidence for the illusion of control, and 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.840 we also talked about factors that tend to influence how 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.720 much illusory control we experience. Just a few examples that 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.680 came up last time. One is mood. We apparently experience 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.240 more illusory control on average when we're in a positive mood. 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.440 The salience of success, or what's called success emphasis. So 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.400 we tend to experience more illusory control when we have 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.800 a string of early successful outcomes getting what we want. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.560 So maybe if you're doing a coin flip a bunch 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.480 of times and the coin flip comes up your way 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.960 several times in a row, might start to make you 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:15.280 feel like somehow you're making that happen. Another factor was 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.400 the need or desire for the outcome, So the more 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.279 you want an outcome, the more likely you are to 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:26.640 overestimate your control over it happening. One example of experiments 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:28.839 that showed this was like if the prize of a 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.800 lottery is a sandwich, On average, hungry people are more 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.120 likely to show illusions of control over the lottery than 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.600 people who just stayed, who might have a more realistic 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:43.120 idea of their chances. Another interesting one was power. Positions 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.359 of power or feelings of power are somewhat correlated with 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:51.080 illusory control, so maybe having more actual control over real 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:54.640 things could also bring about more illusions that you can 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.599 control things you can't. And another interesting factor was the 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:03.040 intrusion of reality. So the illusion of control is fortunately 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.640 one of the illusions that has been found to be 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.240 fairly well neutralized or mitigated by giving somebody a reality check, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.080 you like, remind them in the moment what the odds 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.800 on the slot machine actually are, and that seems to 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.080 somewhat reduce a person's belief that they can somehow get 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:23.480 better odds through their behavior. Now, also in the previous episode, 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.120 we talked about in interesting paper I found by Geno 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.880 at All from twenty eleven somewhat challenging the illusion of 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:35.520 control framework by doing experiments showing that illusions of control 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:39.960 can go in both directions. So, for example, there's a 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.040 task where you're trying to solve puzzles on a computer screen, 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.000 and there's a button you can press that will sometimes 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.640 work to make the screen easier to read. And maybe 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.560 the button works fifteen percent of the time you press it, 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.280 or maybe it works eighty five percent of the time 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.279 you press it. In this type of experiment, Gino at 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:03.159 All found that people with little control thought they had 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.919 more control than they did, but people with a lot 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.240 of control thought they had less control than they actually did. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.520 And so the authors of this paper argued that maybe 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.520 this type of finding should cause us to reevaluate the 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.880 findings of the illusion of control experiments, so that we 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.760 think of them not as evidence of a systematic human 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.960 tendency to overestimate our level of control, but that that 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.120 is just one half of a more general tendency to 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.799 misjudge our level of control in both directions, So overestimating 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.760 your control happens more often for outcomes that we, to 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.240 begin with have very little or no control over. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:40.880 Now. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.560 I don't know how well the Geno at All study 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.320 here challenging the illusion of control framework is held up, 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.479 but there, from what I can tell, still seems to 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.599 be a pretty robust research consensus about the illusion of 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.760 control being basically real, And I guess we should just 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.000 keep in mind that it does seem to probably be real, 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:00.720 but maybe it's only the picture. 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:02.160 Now. 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.799 Another thing that comes up in this twenty eleven paper 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.279 by Geno at All is something we haven't really focused 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.880 on all that much yet. I guess we've generally acknowledged it. 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:16.720 But the idea of noting with specifics the ways that 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:21.160 false beliefs generated by illusions of control can have real 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.240 negative consequences, like on our lives and on the world, 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.400 and the authors here site studies making these connections. So 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.280 illusions of control when you think about it, could make 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:37.680 you incorrectly imagine that you are influencing other people's behavior. 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.240 You know, I think we can all remember plenty of 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.880 scenarios when we got up in our heads imagining that 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.119 somebody else was doing something or acting in a certain 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:51.480 way because of us or in reaction to something we did. 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.480 But then later you realize like, oh, actually they were 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:56.640 acting that, you know, you find you get more information, 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:58.960 you find, oh, they were acting that way because of 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.480 something else going on in their lives. You know, other 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.440 people are living whole lives of their own, and we 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.760 often don't know what's happening in their heads and in 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.360 their lives, and so we can have a kind of 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:14.480 very self oriented interpretation of other people's behavior. And one 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.080 form that might take would be or one reason that 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.120 might arise is an illusion of control. 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:24.440 Yeah, there's often this self centered nature of modeling out 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.240 other people's intents and mental states. 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.360 The authors here also note that people who overestimate their 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.720 level of control over outcomes might quote make bad decisions 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.600 about where to direct their efforts. And that totally makes sense, right. 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.800 You know, imagine you're trying to get something that you want, 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.560 and whether you get that outcome is influenced by multiple factors. 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:54.320 Maybe one factor is something that's amenable to practice and skill, 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.720 and the other factor is purely luck. If you think 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.679 that the luck based factor is within your control, you 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.440 could waste time focused on trying to manipulate that when 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.920 you should have been focused on, you know, practicing the 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.760 skill based factor influencing what you can instead of wasting 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.120 your efforts trying to influence what you can't. Yeah, they 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.480 also note research pointing out that illusions of control could 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.800 cause you to make bad judgments about whether or not 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:25.000 to listen to the opinions and input of others. And 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.600 this just that totally seems true, But it also makes 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.680 me think about how if you generalize illusions of control 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.800 beyond the self. It seems to me that illusions of 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.840 control could potentially overlap with the just world illusion, you know, 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.280 the belief that people get what they deserve. And I'm 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.080 sure we can all think of cases where we've, you know, 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.160 encountered somebody who is inclined to blame other people who 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.320 are suffering misfortune for their predicament, even if it's clearly 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.920 due to factors outside of their control. Just the mentality 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.360 that you must have done something to deserve this. You know, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.240 maybe if you had a positive attitude, this wouldn't have 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.040 happened to you, and so forth. I mean, you can 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.440 see that even in scenarios where it's logically absurd, there's 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:14.760 no reason to think that there would be real causal 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.840 factors of that sort, and so applying that to other 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.240 people would almost seem like a sort of universalizing or 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.280 generalizing of the principle of illusions of control. 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.200 Yeah, and you can imagine in these scenarios where I mean, 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.960 there is kind of a self protective rationale in some 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.520 of these judgments. So something that is, you know, that 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.880 random outside of someone's control happens, something negative happens to 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.120 someone you know or someone like You're just aware of 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:48.320 the obvious ramification of that is that something out of 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.400 my control could happen to me, something just like this 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.920 or similar, and that puts you in that place of 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.880 not having control over your events. But if there's a 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.880 reason for it happening to this other person, then perhaps 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.880 there is a reason for it to not happen to you, 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.880 or you know, it puts something conceivably within the realm 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.280 of your control. If there is this causation you can 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.720 focus on with this other individual situation. 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.400 That's a version of the thing we're talking about with 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.400 like driving that you know, we believe auto collisions that 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.880 you somehow would be able to avoid, collisions that other 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.719 people would be less able to avoid because somehow you 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.440 can exert a type of control over driving outcomes that 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:30.400 other people can't. 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.440 Yeah, go to be clear, everyone can use turn signals. 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.160 I'm just saying, consider turn signals. If you haven't used 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.240 to turn signal today, treat yourself. 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.560 So I think it's pretty clear that having the false 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.920 belief that you can control outcomes that you actually can't 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.920 will have negative impacts on your life and on the 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.040 lives of others. There are like an infinite number of 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.239 imaginable scenarios where this type of illusion would be harmful, 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.439 which raises the question, then why do we still experience it? 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.360 Like I haven't we as creatures gotten a lot better 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.800 at seeing the difference between things we can influence and 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:11.240 things we can't. So to examine this question, I want 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.640 to come back to a chapter in an academic psychology 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.160 book that I brought up in the last episode. This 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.080 is a chapter called Illusions of control written by a 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:25.080 psychologist named Suzanne C. Thompson. This is from a book 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:29.280 called Cognitive Illusions from Psychology Press twenty sixteen, edited by 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.640 Rudiger F. Pohl. So this book chapter does an overview 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.640 of illusion of control research, the research that has taken 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.000 place since the nineteen seventies, comparing different methods of studying 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:44.600 the phenomenon and synthesizing the major findings of this subfield. 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.839 Now Later in this chapter, Thompson does cover some of 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.760 the main explanations that have been offered in the scientific 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.840 literature for why illusions of control occur. One explanation she 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.160 brings up that she ends up not agreeing with is 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.240 the explanation given in the original paper by Ellen J. 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.760 Langer from nineteen seventy five. This was the one about 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.800 where Langer essentially said that illusions of control happen because 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:18.679 people literally confuse chance determined outcomes with skill determined outcomes. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:24.199 So we actually mistakenly believe the slot machine is to 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.640 some extent a game of skill, and like elements of 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.120 the skill game cause us to really think that this 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:35.480 connects to the finding that skill based elements like familiarity, involvement, 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.199 and competition, which we talked about in the other episodes, 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.640 could actually cause people to have more illusions of control, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.880 and Thompson brings up some reasons to doubt that Langer's 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.559 skill chance confusion explanation is the right one. The main 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.719 thing she brings up about this theory that resonates with 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.040 me is she says, you know, this theory doesn't explain 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.559 some of the secondary factors that change how much illusory 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:05.480 control we experience, for example, success emphasis, or the level 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.920 of need or desire for an outcome, et cetera. That 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:11.680 just doesn't really make sense if this is the reason 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.760 we have illusions of control. So instead, Thompson and her 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.800 co authors in previous research have offered an explanation for 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:23.400 illusions of control based on what they call a control heuristic. 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.000 And so a heuristic just generally means a process that 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.480 people use to try to quickly solve a problem or 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:34.680 make a determination, not perfectly, but efficiently. So instead of 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.600 like doing a full analysis of a situation where you 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.360 really deliberately think everything out, you can mentally use a 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.720 heuristic to come to a solution or make a determination 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.000 that is fast and good enough. So another way to 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.160 think about a heuristic is a mental shortcut. We use 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:55.200 heuristic reasoning all the time. Basically, anytime we're not slowing 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.360 down to do deliberate analytical thinking, we're probably using various 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:00.520 kinds of hereistics. 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:02.720 Yeah. Yeah, this has come up on the show a 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.960 lot because it really is quite revealing about like what 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.320 we are and how we interact with into what degree 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.720 we're aware of our world. You know, like there's just 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.600 not enough like mental capacity and or energy to do 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.960 a deep analysis all the time. It's also not helpful. 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.600 You've got to move through the world. You have objectives 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:24.920 to get to, and the brain is helping you get 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.240 there without folks getting lost in all the details. 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.040 Yeah, exactly. So Yeah, you might think, well, wouldn't it 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.000 be better if we tried to like do a really 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.320 deep analysis on everything, But no, it would not. You 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.040 don't have time to do that. Like that's that's not 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.320 a way that you could live a life. You have 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:45.200 to do most mental determination fast and cheap. So in 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.920 Judgments of control, Thompson says a control heuristic is quote 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.920 a shortcut that people use to judge the extent of 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.040 their personal influence, and Thompson and co authors came up 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.520 with a model of how this informal heuristic works, and 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.840 they say, as two factors, there are two things that 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:07.200 we in theory look at to make this calculation fast 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:11.000 and dirty calculation about whether we are influencing outcomes or not. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.120 And those two ingredients are number one, your intention to 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:20.040 achieve an outcome and number two, a perceived connection in 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:24.280 the world between your actions and the desired outcome. And so, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.360 in Thompson's own words quote, when one acts with the 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:32.040 intention of obtaining a particular outcome and there is a 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:37.720 relationship temporal, common meaning, or predictive between one's action and 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.600 the outcome, people judged that they had control over the outcome. 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.640 So to connect this to a real world example, you know, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.680 imagine you are playing a slot machine. You have the 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.800 intention of winning a bunch of money, and you play 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.240 it a bunch and you do have a pretty big win. 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.760 Maybe it's on the day when you are wearing your 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.760 lucky underwear. So according to the control hereistic model of 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.800 Thompson and co authors here, this would be a situation 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.119 likely to give rise to illusions of control because both 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.159 conditions here are met. The intention you did intend to 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:15.040 win the money and then the connection you did take 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.439 some action that was connected to you getting the money. 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.800 So it was in this case you could say wearing 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.359 the lucky clothing, but in fact you don't even really 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.040 need the lucky charm to establish this relationship. You could 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.680 have an illusion of control simply for playing the machine 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.320 because in regular play like you have the intention to win, 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:38.879 and then some intermittent winnings occur, and simply the action 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.199 of playing the machine could also cause illusions that the 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.199 gambler has some control over getting that outcome of the 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.959 intermittent winnings, so they believe they have some way to 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.920 beat the system and win big. So I was thinking 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.680 about even though this particular connection would be an illusion 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:57.560 when it comes to like the slot machine, you don't 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:02.439 really control the outcomes, the control heuristic, like many heuristics, 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.919 would still be very useful because it is good enough 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.399 most of the time. Most of the time, it does 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.399 help you accurately determine your influence over all kinds of 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.200 processes every day. So I was just thinking about cooking. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.119 You know, you're cooking in the kitchen. Maybe you're making 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.560 the tomato basil sauce that you've cooked a bunch of 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.040 times before, and this time it came out tasting better 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:30.000 than it usually does. And then you connect that temporally 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.440 to an action that you took, like I added more 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.560 garlic than I usually do, and then you use that 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.560 to correctly determine that your actions adding the extra garlic 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:45.159 influence the desirable outcome of the food tasting good. So 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.400 you know, for situations like that, this kind of heuristic 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.359 would work just fine. It's not that the heuristic is bad. 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:53.720 We use it all the time, and most of the 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.080 time it's good enough. You can imagine the alternative of 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.600 like being frozen in place trying to consider, like what 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.480 role chance factors outside of your control may also have 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.679 influenced how much you liked your tomato basil sauce. You know, 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.600 this is just like not a useful scenario to be in. 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.199 And of course the thing about tomato basil sauce is 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:17.040 you will, in theory make it again, so this process 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:22.800 of testing and learning and making these judgment calls will continue. 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.960 That's right, So you could refine your understanding in the future. 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:26.600 I mean, maybe if you make it with more garlic 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.400 again and you don't like it, you could you can 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.240 update your beliefs. But in this situation, a heuristic that says, okay, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.119 I combine, I intended for an outcome, I took an 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.840 action and that outcome occurred. That's good enough. I can say, then, okay, 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.280 I did have control. My action was what determined the outcome. 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.239 But of course there are situations in the world that 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.960 can turn this normally very well functioning heuristic against you. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.919 Games of chance are one of them. Remember you know, 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.040 so you think like I have the intention of winning 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.919 the slot machine. I take the act of placing the 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.359 bets and pulling the lever. Sometimes I do get small, 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.240 intermittent payouts. Therefore I am at least partially in control. 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.840 I can beat the odds. But it's not just games 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.679 of chance. It's also everyday scenarios where the amount of 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.600 control you have over an outcome that you care about 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.879 is ambiguous. So I was trying to think of some 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.719 scenarios like this. Here's a very common one. Trying to 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:29.600 persuade people to agree with you about something a very 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.960 very common human activity. It occurs in workplaces and friendships 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:38.040 and families and sales. At every level of human life. 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.040 There's persuasion, and so it's happening all the time, and 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.480 whether you succeed or fail at this task, you never 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.320 know exactly how much of the outcome was due to 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.440 factors within your control, like the kind of persuasive case 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:56.240 you made, or to other factors outside of your control, 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.560 like everything else going on in this other person's life 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.800 and mind. So the level of control that you have 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.639 is always kind of ambiguous. You will have intermittent successes 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.560 and failures at persuading people of things, but it's easy 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:15.040 to see how illusions of control can arise here, and 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.920 maybe you can start thinking that you have more influence 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.120 over people than you actually do, because like, sometimes you're 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.240 going to win at this game, and you can never 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.359 really know for sure why you won, if it was 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.920 because of something you did or because of something else. 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.480 Yeah, and I mean the reverse is true as well. 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.000 Like you often hear, it's kind of like the you know, 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.320 the old thing, Little pictures have big ears, right. I mean, 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:39.840 you might not think you're having an influence on someone 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.080 that someone's looking up to you or looking to you 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.160 or noticing how you're responding to something, but that influence 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.320 may be in place. So it kind of goes both. 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.800 Ways, totally yeah. I mean, in fact, that could be 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.040 the other side of that geno at all study, right that, 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.840 And sometimes we have a lot of influence and we 0:21:55.040 --> 0:22:08.360 underestimate the amount we have. Yeah. Yeah, But another kind 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.240 of extremely common human scenario where the feedback is ambiguous 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.000 would be health outcomes. You know, we do this all 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.680 the time. It's like, I feel some kind of pain 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.040 or discomfort in my body. I want to feel better. 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.920 Maybe I do something, like I take some kind of medication, 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:30.120 or I do some kind of exercise, and then sometime 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.040 soon after I do that something, whatever it is, I 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:37.240 feel better. Therefore, I'm kind of inclined to conclude that 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:41.000 whatever it was I did created the outcome of me 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.399 feeling better. And maybe it did or maybe it didn't. 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.000 Like without clear evidence, the kind of clear evidence that 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.120 we have from like a randomized controlled trial, it's hard 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:53.919 to know whether the intervention is what did it or 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.959 whether you simply started to feel better anyway due to 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:00.280 regression to the mean. But you know, according to the 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.160 control heuristic, you would like you would have a hit 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:06.600 on whatever that intervention was, and then therefore it would 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.080 feel like whatever you did was the decisive factor. You 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:11.560 were the controlling factor there. 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:14.440 Yeah, I mean, and even when you're aware of this, 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:16.800 you're kind of left sometimes. I mean, I speak from 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.720 my own experience here in a situation where you're like, well, okay, 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:23.240 my doctor said to try taking the supplement, and I did, 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:25.280 and then I got to feeling better. But I could 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:27.320 have easily just that could have just been at the 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:30.600 point at which my body was healing back up again. 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:32.560 You know, it's like there might not be a connection there, 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:36.639 But maybe I just keep taking them because it you know, 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:39.080 like it kind of comes back to, you know, the 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:43.960 reduced cost of keeping an ambulant in your pocket. You know, 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:46.840 it's not inconvenience me and inconveniencing me to do this, 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.000 So I guess I'll keep doing it just in case 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:51.639 there was some line up between these two things. 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:54.880 Sure, and you never know, So if the feedback is ambiguous, 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:57.199 maybe it is doing something. And if it's not like 0:23:57.280 --> 0:23:59.640 super costly or hurting you in some other way, why 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:00.240 not do it it? 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.920 Yeah, And so it can be frustrating that a lot 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:06.320 of things in life end up being like this, for sure. 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:10.280 So anyway, I think this control heuristic model makes a 0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:12.200 lot of sense. I don't think we can say for 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:16.119 sure that this is the best explanation for why we 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:18.480 experience of illusions of control, But it seems like a 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:20.320 good candidate to me. It seems at least to have 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:24.320 a pretty to work as a pretty strong working hypothesis. Yeah, 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.399 and this brings us to the next question addressed in 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:30.240 Thompson's chapter, which connects to something we've we've brought up 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:35.040 in both directions now, which is what are the implications 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:38.320 of illusions of control in our lives? Like, how do 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:42.359 these illusions affect us? And do they do they ultimately 0:24:42.560 --> 0:24:44.359 help us more or hurt us more? 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:46.240 Because I think a lot of us here that we're 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.960 illusion and we think of illusion as unreality, and you know, 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:52.159 maybe we don't like the idea that we're just wandering 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:56.240 about in our daily lives confronted by illusions. But of 0:24:56.280 --> 0:25:00.439 course there's a lot to our perception of real that 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:03.679 is illusory, you know, as we've discussed many times in 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:06.560 the show before. So just because as an illusion doesn't 0:25:06.560 --> 0:25:12.200 necessarily mean it's bad, but also illusions can be disruptive 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:12.960 as well. 0:25:12.920 --> 0:25:15.280 Right, So I just think it's worth looking at ways 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:18.800 in which illusions of control can be both bad and 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:21.720 good and spoiler alert, it seems that the evidence is 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:24.360 that they are both. They both help us and hurt us. 0:25:25.000 --> 0:25:27.920 So on the positive side, one thing that Thompson talks 0:25:27.960 --> 0:25:30.960 about is, you know, the idea that human beings are 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:34.760 clearly motivated to believe that we have agency over outcomes 0:25:34.760 --> 0:25:38.040 in our lives. And research has found that in general, 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:42.400 belief in quote control and a sense of self efficacy 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:45.399 the fact that you have agency over your life, you 0:25:45.440 --> 0:25:48.520 can take actions and they do have an effect. That 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:53.399 those things are correlated with desirable outcomes like better coping 0:25:53.440 --> 0:25:58.240 with stress, better performance on tasks, and some health related outcomes. 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:02.000 Sometimes health has been shown to benefit from these feelings. 0:26:02.400 --> 0:26:05.119 So it seems that in multiple ways it is good 0:26:05.240 --> 0:26:08.199 for us to believe that we have the ability to 0:26:08.320 --> 0:26:11.440 affect what happens in our lives. And you can see how. 0:26:11.480 --> 0:26:13.880 Of course, in one sense that would be good because 0:26:13.960 --> 0:26:16.720 it is actually good to have control over your own 0:26:16.760 --> 0:26:19.280 life to a certain extent, you know, so like it 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:23.160 is good to in reality be in control over your fate. 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:27.840 But would the belief in self efficacy itself be beneficial 0:26:27.920 --> 0:26:31.280 even if it weren't always true, And it seems there 0:26:31.359 --> 0:26:33.880 is some research indicating the answer to this, at least 0:26:33.880 --> 0:26:38.439 in some ways is yes. So there are some findings 0:26:38.520 --> 0:26:43.080 that show that a tendency toward illusions of control might 0:26:43.160 --> 0:26:48.439 help us avoid discouragement when pursuing a goal. So the 0:26:48.480 --> 0:26:52.760 illusion of control could help inculcate a sense of persistence 0:26:52.960 --> 0:26:58.320 in goal attainment behavior, especially when facing difficult conditions or setbacks. 0:26:58.920 --> 0:27:03.680 And also, illusory control seems to help in mitigating disappointment 0:27:03.960 --> 0:27:07.879 leading to negative mood. It possibly is even protective to 0:27:07.920 --> 0:27:11.480 some degree against depression. So to the extent that it 0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:15.879 is able to provide sort of like mood regulation and 0:27:16.119 --> 0:27:20.320 help maintain motivation and protect against depression, that seems like 0:27:20.359 --> 0:27:22.680 that would have very clear benefits on well being. 0:27:23.000 --> 0:27:23.520 Yeah. 0:27:24.359 --> 0:27:26.880 Another thing that's interesting is we talked in the last 0:27:26.880 --> 0:27:31.679 episode about research finding an association between illusory control and 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:35.640 personal power. But the kind of interesting thing is that 0:27:35.119 --> 0:27:39.119 that causation could go either way or both ways. So 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:42.919 it could be that positions of power cause people to 0:27:43.000 --> 0:27:46.119 have more illusions of control, but it could also be 0:27:46.240 --> 0:27:49.760 that illusions of control tend to increase the likelihood that 0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:52.240 somebody ends up in a position of power, So it 0:27:52.280 --> 0:27:56.480 could literally lead to you know, you being essentially better 0:27:56.520 --> 0:27:59.240 able to attain goals, or I don't know, maybe having 0:27:59.320 --> 0:28:02.000 other people vw you you more positively and wanting to 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:06.520 promote you in some way or empower you in some way. So, 0:28:06.880 --> 0:28:08.639 I don't know. When you combine all this together, it 0:28:08.640 --> 0:28:11.000 looks like there's pretty good reason to think that illusions 0:28:11.000 --> 0:28:15.639 of control help maintain positive emotions and can help a 0:28:15.680 --> 0:28:20.440 person maintain a sort of confidence or action orientation, essentially 0:28:20.440 --> 0:28:24.359 the motivation to keep actively doing things to try to 0:28:24.400 --> 0:28:28.040 achieve your goals. But it's not all flowers and butterflies. 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:30.840 We mentioned earlier that list of negative consequences that have 0:28:30.960 --> 0:28:34.680 been found to flow from illusions of control, and Thompson 0:28:34.720 --> 0:28:37.879 mentions a bunch of negative consequences as well. I'm not 0:28:37.920 --> 0:28:39.600 going to get into all of them here because there's 0:28:39.640 --> 0:28:42.160 some overlap with what we've already talked about and so forth, 0:28:42.880 --> 0:28:46.320 but just briefly, a couple of things. One is, remember 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:48.880 the study we talked about last time from McKenna from 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:51.880 nineteen ninety three, which found the tendency to believe that 0:28:51.960 --> 0:28:54.960 you would be able to exert more control than other 0:28:55.080 --> 0:29:00.960 drivers on the road. Subsequent research by Schlehofer twenty ten 0:29:01.040 --> 0:29:04.240 that Schlehelfer and co authors from twenty ten found that 0:29:04.720 --> 0:29:09.920 people who show greater illusions of control about driving were 0:29:10.000 --> 0:29:13.000 also more likely to drive while trying to use a 0:29:13.040 --> 0:29:16.760 cell phone simultaneously. In reality, and you can kind of 0:29:16.800 --> 0:29:19.640 see how that would extend from the belief that you 0:29:19.800 --> 0:29:23.280 have more control over chance based outcomes than other people do. 0:29:23.920 --> 0:29:26.520 But it actually, in this case leads to a behavior 0:29:26.880 --> 0:29:30.800 that compromises your control, you know, it compromises your driving 0:29:30.840 --> 0:29:34.480 ability and makes a fatal crash more likely. And there 0:29:34.520 --> 0:29:37.400 are apparently a lot of examples like this where people 0:29:37.400 --> 0:29:40.960 who exhibit greater illusions of control, which might not necessarily 0:29:41.000 --> 0:29:43.520 be a you know, like a stable feature of a 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:47.160 person's personality across their whole life. It could also be situational. 0:29:47.200 --> 0:29:50.800 But in situations where people show greater illusions of control, 0:29:50.920 --> 0:29:55.480 it has been linked to taking fewer protective measures against diseases, 0:29:56.200 --> 0:30:01.000 to making worse decisions as financial traders, and to engaging 0:30:01.240 --> 0:30:05.520 in problem gambling behaviors. In fact, there was one thing 0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:08.040 in particular in this part of the chapter Thompson brought 0:30:08.080 --> 0:30:10.720 up that I thought was an interesting finding. So this 0:30:10.920 --> 0:30:12.880 was from a paper by cow Leie at all in 0:30:12.920 --> 0:30:17.000 twenty fifteen, and it found that there was a difference 0:30:17.360 --> 0:30:23.840 in how high illusory control gamblers would review a gambling 0:30:23.880 --> 0:30:27.160 session after it was over versus people who had low 0:30:27.200 --> 0:30:30.920 illusory control. So you have gamblers, they go out, they 0:30:31.000 --> 0:30:33.160 gamble a bunch, and then they lose a bunch of money, 0:30:33.520 --> 0:30:36.240 and then they are asked to reflect back on the 0:30:36.280 --> 0:30:41.200 gaming session. Apparently, high illusory control gamblers would focus on 0:30:41.640 --> 0:30:47.800 their highest individual win within the session, whereas low illusory 0:30:47.840 --> 0:30:53.080 control gamblers would have a more total view of the 0:30:53.160 --> 0:30:56.160 session and note like their the final outcome, like what 0:30:56.200 --> 0:30:58.800 were their winnings or losings at the end of it. 0:30:59.400 --> 0:31:02.160 And so I think I thought that was really interesting. So, 0:31:02.240 --> 0:31:05.080 if you're in a condition where you're especially prone to 0:31:05.160 --> 0:31:09.760 illusions of control about gambling, apparently the salient piece of 0:31:09.760 --> 0:31:12.280 information to you about the whole session was like your 0:31:12.360 --> 0:31:15.600 best hand of the night, your best payout at the 0:31:15.640 --> 0:31:19.520 slot machine in a single moment, and maybe even though 0:31:19.560 --> 0:31:23.160 you like lost everything overall, the important thing to remember 0:31:23.360 --> 0:31:25.880 was that moment when everything was looking really good. 0:31:27.280 --> 0:31:29.560 And it's kind of twisted, right, because it's in it 0:31:29.680 --> 0:31:33.080 to a sense, it's looking on the sunny side of life, right, 0:31:33.200 --> 0:31:36.640 it's being an optimist. It's looking back on your experiences 0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:40.640 and not focusing on the negatives but focusing on the positives. 0:31:41.120 --> 0:31:43.800 But and that's great. I mean that to a certain extent, 0:31:43.920 --> 0:31:46.000 that's what you should do. But also you want to 0:31:46.000 --> 0:31:50.440 be able to correctly learn from your mistakes and do 0:31:50.520 --> 0:31:54.400 an accurate postop on things that you've done in life. 0:31:54.520 --> 0:31:56.560 That's a great point that this is an instinct that 0:31:56.640 --> 0:31:59.520 in other contexts is a very positive one. Like if 0:31:59.520 --> 0:32:02.040 you can, you know, if you had you know, you 0:32:02.120 --> 0:32:05.120 had a rough day or something, if you can like 0:32:05.360 --> 0:32:07.840 step back and focus on the best thing that happened 0:32:07.880 --> 0:32:10.360 all day, well, you know, that's wonderful. That's like a 0:32:10.400 --> 0:32:12.560 great thing to be able to do, unless that's like 0:32:12.800 --> 0:32:15.440 guiding you in how you should invest your money in 0:32:15.480 --> 0:32:16.560 the future or something. 0:32:17.000 --> 0:32:19.800 Yeah, it's interesting that like the main case we're talking 0:32:19.800 --> 0:32:22.640 about here gambling, especially with you know, slot machines and whatnot, 0:32:22.680 --> 0:32:24.880 but just sort of gambling in general. It's basically it's 0:32:24.920 --> 0:32:29.120 an artificial scenario that lines up with a lot of 0:32:29.840 --> 0:32:34.239 real life survival experiences that are a part of our 0:32:35.120 --> 0:32:39.080 heritage and a part of our evolutionary development. You know. 0:32:40.120 --> 0:32:43.640 But you know, there's competition for resources and so forth, 0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:46.920 the use of skill, or at least a perception of 0:32:46.920 --> 0:32:49.960 the use of skill in those pursuits. But the world 0:32:50.040 --> 0:32:52.200 of gambling, the world of games in general, like even 0:32:52.200 --> 0:32:55.320 if you're not playing for stakes, it is an artificial 0:32:55.360 --> 0:32:58.880 construct that involves a lot of those survival activities. 0:32:59.200 --> 0:33:02.160 Yes, that's right, and in fact interesting thing Thompson brings 0:33:02.240 --> 0:33:04.760 up in this chapter. She highlights how the gambling industry 0:33:06.120 --> 0:33:09.800 directly exploits known illusion of control triggers to pull you 0:33:09.840 --> 0:33:13.000 in that like slot machines, it's almost like they were 0:33:13.000 --> 0:33:15.280 designed by somebody who read a book chapter on the 0:33:15.320 --> 0:33:21.560 illusion of control, and they were doing a checklist like okay, familiarity, involvement, success, emphasis, 0:33:21.760 --> 0:33:24.840 They really like, quite fiendishly like hit on all of 0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:28.400 the things that seem to illicit higher illusions of control. 0:33:29.040 --> 0:33:32.240 Another interesting thing about illusion of control and gambling brought 0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:36.040 up in this chapter is a neuroimaging study. This was 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:39.040 research done by hudgens Haney at All in twenty thirteen. 0:33:39.600 --> 0:33:42.600 They're studying real time brain activity of people who had 0:33:42.680 --> 0:33:47.240 gambling problems versus non problem gamblers when playing games that 0:33:47.360 --> 0:33:50.880 have some level of control. Like poker versus games that 0:33:50.920 --> 0:33:55.040 are purely chance based, like Roulette. And the interesting finding 0:33:55.160 --> 0:33:58.200 was that, Okay, you take people who don't have a 0:33:58.280 --> 0:34:02.920 history of gambling problems, they show a very different level 0:34:03.040 --> 0:34:07.280 of neural engagement in skill games versus chance games. So 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:10.080 you put them in a game of skill, they're going 0:34:10.120 --> 0:34:11.680 to be very engaged. You put them in a game 0:34:11.719 --> 0:34:15.320 of chance, and they will show less activity in the 0:34:15.440 --> 0:34:18.560 visual and prefrontal cortex than they did in the skill game. 0:34:19.400 --> 0:34:22.360 People who have a history of gambling problems did not 0:34:22.680 --> 0:34:28.080 exhibit this same difference, so for them that in chance games, 0:34:28.160 --> 0:34:31.520 the visual and prefrontal cortex was fully engaged as it 0:34:31.719 --> 0:34:34.600 was in skill games, which, you know, it's hard to 0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:37.479 know exactly how to interpret that, but so at least 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:41.200 one possible way of thinking about that is that is 0:34:41.239 --> 0:34:44.400 that when you have high illusions of control, you are 0:34:44.960 --> 0:34:48.839 looking at a chance based game as if there's like 0:34:49.000 --> 0:34:51.960 some way that you can engage to do better at it. 0:34:52.920 --> 0:34:56.120 You're still scanning the table for advantages, but you know, actually, 0:34:56.160 --> 0:34:59.040 if it's like Roulette, there's nothing you can do. Now. 0:34:59.120 --> 0:35:01.880 One good thing the Thompson mentions is that there's some 0:35:01.920 --> 0:35:06.440 evidence that problem gamblers. Ilutions of control can be mitigated 0:35:06.480 --> 0:35:10.680 by interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy, and like we talked 0:35:10.680 --> 0:35:13.560 about last time, at least in some situations, studies have 0:35:13.600 --> 0:35:16.400 found that illusions of control seem to be well mitigated 0:35:16.440 --> 0:35:17.920 by a basic reality check. 0:35:18.400 --> 0:35:20.000 Yeah, yeah, I mean there are a lot of different 0:35:20.840 --> 0:35:24.120 versions of this, but yeah, like with certain anxieties issues, 0:35:24.120 --> 0:35:27.719 for example, there you can be taught to like put 0:35:27.760 --> 0:35:30.520 your thoughts on trial. I've heard it referred to as such. 0:35:30.560 --> 0:35:32.839 You know, where you're you're taking something that is just 0:35:32.880 --> 0:35:36.359 like a almost kind of an ambient thought or way 0:35:36.400 --> 0:35:40.000 of thinking in your mind, maybe not even expressed verbally 0:35:40.120 --> 0:35:44.520 or otherwise, but take a moment to collect the thought 0:35:45.160 --> 0:35:47.959 and then properly analyze it and saying is this likely? 0:35:48.080 --> 0:35:51.200 Is this reasonable? And so forth? And yeah, and it 0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:53.480 you know, it can. It can work very well with 0:35:53.680 --> 0:35:56.759 anxiety to you know, within you know limits, And then 0:35:57.080 --> 0:35:59.000 it makes sense that it would work in these contexts 0:35:59.000 --> 0:36:01.880 as well, you know, like okay, let's take this impulse, 0:36:02.080 --> 0:36:04.200 let's slow it down, and let's actually let's look at 0:36:04.200 --> 0:36:05.200 it from both sides here. 0:36:05.480 --> 0:36:09.080 Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. So I don't know, 0:36:09.280 --> 0:36:12.920 I think this is interesting that the illusion of control 0:36:13.080 --> 0:36:18.080 is something that is fundamentally objectively an illusion, an illusion 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:23.320 like it does generate misperceptions and false beliefs, incorrect judgments, 0:36:23.920 --> 0:36:26.600 but to some degree it does have a positive side. 0:36:26.640 --> 0:36:31.160 It seems illusions of control probably do help improve mood 0:36:31.280 --> 0:36:35.200 and probably do help us persist in attaining difficult goals, 0:36:35.680 --> 0:36:40.040 maintain you know, motivation and action orientation while we're trying 0:36:40.080 --> 0:36:43.840 to implement making positive changes in our lives and so forth. 0:36:44.160 --> 0:36:46.440 But then again, on the negative side, it, of course, 0:36:46.719 --> 0:36:49.360 false beliefs can lead to all kinds of problems and 0:36:49.400 --> 0:36:52.040 negative outcomes in the world, poor choices about how to 0:36:52.080 --> 0:36:54.880 invest our time and efforts, and in the worst cases 0:36:54.960 --> 0:36:59.360 can lead to dangerous and destructive behaviors. So it's a 0:36:59.480 --> 0:37:04.000 complex phenomenon that affects our lives in both directions. 0:37:04.520 --> 0:37:17.560 Absolutely. Now, given all that we've discussed regarding the illusion 0:37:17.560 --> 0:37:19.360 of control, you know, it should come as no surprise 0:37:19.719 --> 0:37:23.960 that some have linked the concept to magical thinking in general, 0:37:24.160 --> 0:37:28.319 to belief in the paranormal, because you know, what is 0:37:28.360 --> 0:37:30.799 the gap between some level of belief and say, the 0:37:30.840 --> 0:37:35.880 power of prayer, holy amulets, lucky objects, lucky traditions, and 0:37:36.040 --> 0:37:39.799 some level of belief and say personal psychic ability or 0:37:39.840 --> 0:37:43.040 other paranormal concepts. You know, I would even argue that 0:37:43.040 --> 0:37:46.200 there's more than a little bit of crossover between these things, 0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:50.799 in part based on my own experiences, my own observations 0:37:50.800 --> 0:37:56.600 of how I approach certain situations. Take bowling, for example. 0:37:56.880 --> 0:38:00.760 Oh boy, so bowling, great game, great fun. I maybe 0:38:00.760 --> 0:38:02.680 play it two or three times per year. I don't 0:38:02.680 --> 0:38:03.359 know about you, Joe. 0:38:04.080 --> 0:38:06.080 I have not bowled in quite some time, but I 0:38:06.120 --> 0:38:09.560 would love to. I enjoyed bowling a lot when I 0:38:09.600 --> 0:38:12.480 was a kid. It was like one of my I 0:38:12.520 --> 0:38:14.480 never did it all that much, but I feel like 0:38:14.600 --> 0:38:16.959 on those rare occasions when it was like, what would 0:38:17.000 --> 0:38:19.200 you really like to do today, I would I would 0:38:19.200 --> 0:38:24.520 request bowling. But of course with the bumpers, please, Yeah. 0:38:24.280 --> 0:38:28.840 Those bumpers can definitely help. Now, one of the interesting 0:38:28.880 --> 0:38:32.000 things about bowling is that, unlike a lot of the 0:38:32.000 --> 0:38:34.600 examples we've been touching on, bowling is a game of skill. 0:38:35.080 --> 0:38:39.000 So initially, your initial role directly sets the speed and 0:38:39.040 --> 0:38:41.880 trajectory of the ball as it heads towards the pins. 0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:45.920 Now where it gets interesting is, of course, a skilled player, 0:38:46.880 --> 0:38:49.560 I'm assuming may feel entirely more in control of what 0:38:49.640 --> 0:38:52.880 happens than me when eye bowl, though we've plenty of 0:38:52.880 --> 0:38:55.960 info to suggest that even they, even an expert, even 0:38:56.000 --> 0:38:59.120 a professional bowler, may feel like they have less control 0:38:59.200 --> 0:39:02.799 than they do. And obviously plenty of pro athletes engage 0:39:02.880 --> 0:39:05.480 in some kind of good luck ritual. I'd love to 0:39:05.520 --> 0:39:07.359 hear from sports fans out there if you have some 0:39:07.440 --> 0:39:10.319 really telling examples of this, but I feel like you 0:39:10.400 --> 0:39:11.919 kind of hear about them all the time. Like you'll 0:39:11.920 --> 0:39:15.040 have people that are like literally performing at the very 0:39:15.719 --> 0:39:20.440 you know, top of their sport and are very competent 0:39:20.560 --> 0:39:23.560 from a skill and conditioning standpoint. They have all the 0:39:23.600 --> 0:39:26.439 experience in the world. You know, nobody can touch them, 0:39:26.760 --> 0:39:30.600 and yet they will perhaps also engage in some level 0:39:30.840 --> 0:39:34.400 of superstitious, you know, ritual luck scenario. 0:39:34.960 --> 0:39:37.560 Yeah, that's interesting. That raises a lot of questions in 0:39:37.560 --> 0:39:39.640 my mind. But continue and maybe we'll come back. 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:44.120 So, whether you are a pro bowler or you know, 0:39:44.200 --> 0:39:47.480 just a casual bowler like myself that maybe bowls, you know, 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:50.239 a few times a year, the scenario is still the same. 0:39:50.360 --> 0:39:52.759 Once you send that bowl down the lane, once it 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:57.799 has left your hand, it's all set in motion. And 0:39:57.920 --> 0:40:03.200 yet I certainly have time and time again caught myself 0:40:03.239 --> 0:40:07.120 in that those moments before it hits trying to nudge 0:40:07.160 --> 0:40:10.840 the ball with my mind toward the center pin. You know, 0:40:11.400 --> 0:40:16.040 not actually you know, rationally believing I have that power 0:40:16.120 --> 0:40:18.440 to do it. Not like turning to everyone and being like, 0:40:18.440 --> 0:40:21.080 all right, watch this, everybody, I'm gonna bowl and then 0:40:21.080 --> 0:40:24.480 I'm gonna use my telekinesis to get a stride. No, no, 0:40:24.719 --> 0:40:28.440 but I'll catch myself doing something either with my hands 0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:32.440 or with my will, trying to will the ball towards 0:40:32.440 --> 0:40:32.880 the pins. 0:40:33.080 --> 0:40:36.360 Yes, exactly. You know what can I say something that 0:40:36.440 --> 0:40:39.480 I think helps influence that, even though this is a 0:40:39.480 --> 0:40:42.799 pure misunderstanding, But rob, if you know what I'm talking about, 0:40:42.840 --> 0:40:45.640 If you watch pro bowlers, they don't just throw the 0:40:45.680 --> 0:40:48.160 ball straight. They put some kind of spin on it 0:40:48.200 --> 0:40:50.719 where it like arcs or hooks. Do you know what 0:40:50.719 --> 0:40:51.359 I'm talking about? 0:40:51.360 --> 0:40:53.480 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they're a number of those techniques. 0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:54.080 Yeah. 0:40:54.320 --> 0:40:57.000 My father in law at one point was showing me 0:40:57.000 --> 0:40:58.920 some of those and trying to teach me how to 0:40:58.920 --> 0:41:01.120 do the spin. And also, I mean, a very skilled 0:41:01.160 --> 0:41:04.160 bowler can do a lot of impressive things, but it 0:41:04.160 --> 0:41:07.120 doesn't change the fact that once the ball lays their hand, 0:41:07.360 --> 0:41:09.680 it is set in motion. There's no more that there's 0:41:09.719 --> 0:41:11.759 no telekinesis involved. 0:41:11.360 --> 0:41:13.759 That's right, It's all there in the initial throw. So 0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:16.239 that was their moment of control was when they were 0:41:16.280 --> 0:41:19.520 throwing it. It's not, you know, they're not using telekinesis afterwards, 0:41:19.719 --> 0:41:22.200 but it can kind of look like it because it's 0:41:22.239 --> 0:41:24.440 like hooking in a way we're used to, like the 0:41:24.480 --> 0:41:27.400 amateur is used to throwing the ball just straight, but 0:41:27.920 --> 0:41:29.480 when you put the kind of spin on it that 0:41:29.600 --> 0:41:33.480 makes it curve like that, it it encourages the idea 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:37.680 that somehow the bowler is continuing to exert control after 0:41:37.760 --> 0:41:41.399 it has left their hand. Really, sometimes all in the throw, right. 0:41:41.360 --> 0:41:44.960 Yeah, sometimes there's a flourish or something. And I guess 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:49.120 to less experienced bowlers too, like myself is like sometimes 0:41:49.120 --> 0:41:51.560 there is a real disconnect between what you think you're 0:41:51.600 --> 0:41:54.279 about to do what the ball actually does, and that 0:41:54.280 --> 0:41:56.960 can go either way. You can feel like in the 0:41:57.040 --> 0:41:59.799 moment you are in a bowling movie and then you 0:41:59.800 --> 0:42:02.520 get gutterball, or you can feel like you kind of 0:42:02.520 --> 0:42:04.600 fumbled it and oh you got a surprise strike out 0:42:04.640 --> 0:42:07.880 of it. So these sorts of things are possible. So again, 0:42:08.200 --> 0:42:11.800 I don't actually believe I can mentally manipulate bowling balls 0:42:11.800 --> 0:42:13.520 from a distance, but in the heat of the moment, 0:42:13.800 --> 0:42:17.279 there is that feeling that I don't know, it's not 0:42:17.320 --> 0:42:18.920 even a feeling that I should try to do it. 0:42:18.960 --> 0:42:22.120 I just catch myself doing it, and I feel like 0:42:22.160 --> 0:42:27.799 this is also interconnected with the consciously ambiguous notion of intent, aim, 0:42:27.840 --> 0:42:32.480 and execution. So anyway, this connection isn't just something that 0:42:32.520 --> 0:42:35.800 I've been thinking about. It's also referenced in the sources 0:42:35.840 --> 0:42:38.120 I was looking at. I was looking at a couple 0:42:38.200 --> 0:42:44.520 of different papers. Both of them involve social psychologist Daniel M. Wegner, 0:42:45.440 --> 0:42:47.560 who lived nineteen forty eight through twenty thirteen. I believe 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:49.880 he's come up on the show before, so he mentions 0:42:49.880 --> 0:42:52.680 this connection between magical thinking and the illusion of control 0:42:52.800 --> 0:42:55.719 in two thousand and eight self is Magic. And then 0:42:55.760 --> 0:42:58.279 there's also a paper I was looking at on which 0:42:58.320 --> 0:43:01.160 he was a co author, every Day Powers the role 0:43:01.200 --> 0:43:05.800 of apparent mental causation in the over estimation of personal influence. 0:43:06.120 --> 0:43:10.040 The lead author on that was psychologist Emily Pronin. This 0:43:10.160 --> 0:43:13.600 was from two thousand and six. Both of these reference Thompson, 0:43:13.680 --> 0:43:16.840 by the way. Now in the prone and paper, the 0:43:16.880 --> 0:43:20.600 authors argue that magical thinking may serve a motivational purpose, 0:43:21.080 --> 0:43:23.960 especially in times of stress and uncertainty, and they point 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:26.840 to several different documented cases of this from arise in 0:43:26.880 --> 0:43:31.120 magical thinking among Germans in the interwar period and police 0:43:31.120 --> 0:43:34.719 officers working in high risk environments. They also point out 0:43:35.320 --> 0:43:38.920 some health related scenarios that I believe that this is 0:43:38.920 --> 0:43:43.239 directly from Thompson's research, and then they write, quote, even 0:43:43.280 --> 0:43:46.400 when people recognize the control over life events may be 0:43:46.480 --> 0:43:50.520 impossible to achieve, magical beliefs or may arise out of 0:43:50.560 --> 0:43:54.120 a motivation to find meaning in that which they cannot control. 0:43:55.520 --> 0:43:58.480 So they've gotten to point out that quote, basic cognitive 0:43:58.560 --> 0:44:03.080 errors involving the perception of causal relationships when only non 0:44:03.120 --> 0:44:07.240 causal associations are present, along with a need to control 0:44:07.360 --> 0:44:11.400 things and uncontrollable situations, can lead to these kinds of 0:44:11.520 --> 0:44:14.759 acts and beliefs. And indeed, they stress that these sorts 0:44:14.800 --> 0:44:18.320 of acts may occur even when we rationally deny the connection. 0:44:19.400 --> 0:44:21.480 And you know, this touches on sort of like the 0:44:21.920 --> 0:44:25.279 dual nature of human cognition and belief that we've touched 0:44:25.320 --> 0:44:27.719 on many times before. I mean, you can you can 0:44:27.760 --> 0:44:32.919 have superstitious ideas while also having rational ideas in your head. 0:44:32.960 --> 0:44:35.000 You know, we can. We can balance these things and 0:44:35.000 --> 0:44:38.200 switch back and forth between them, and we're not necessarily 0:44:38.320 --> 0:44:41.279 completely chained to one extreme or the other. 0:44:41.680 --> 0:44:44.120 Right, And another way of thinking about it is like 0:44:44.239 --> 0:44:47.600 we we don't always act on what we know, or 0:44:47.640 --> 0:44:49.840 we don't always act as if we know what we 0:44:49.960 --> 0:44:51.280 know right. 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:56.640 One example that discussed in this paper is okay, thinking 0:44:56.719 --> 0:45:00.640 ill of someone and then something bad happens that person 0:45:00.680 --> 0:45:02.960 you were thinking ill of. They point out that this 0:45:03.120 --> 0:45:08.239 may well cause feelings of guilt in you, despite the 0:45:08.280 --> 0:45:12.640 fact that mere feelings cannot hurt someone. Your thoughts of 0:45:12.680 --> 0:45:16.440 ill will are not going to actually harm someone without 0:45:16.800 --> 0:45:19.040 without some other things happening in between. You know that 0:45:20.040 --> 0:45:23.640 pure thought is not going to do it. But in 0:45:23.680 --> 0:45:25.759 one of these situations you may feel that guilt. And 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:29.240 they stress that what the quote, generating consistent thoughts related 0:45:29.280 --> 0:45:32.000 to an event just prior to its occurrence may be 0:45:32.120 --> 0:45:36.680 sufficient to induce feelings of authorship for the event. So 0:45:37.360 --> 0:45:40.080 they carried out a series of experiments that they discussed 0:45:40.080 --> 0:45:42.680 in this paper involving subjects being told about a peer's 0:45:42.960 --> 0:45:46.239 physical ailments on the end, on the flip side, being 0:45:46.280 --> 0:45:49.160 told about a peers athletic success. And they also did 0:45:49.160 --> 0:45:52.720 a third and a fourth experiment involving real athletic competitions, 0:45:53.400 --> 0:45:56.400 and they summarize by saying quote. In each study, the 0:45:56.440 --> 0:46:01.920 relevant outcome occurred regardless of participants. Thoughts was experimentally predetermined 0:46:01.960 --> 0:46:03.880 in our first two studies, and it was part of 0:46:03.880 --> 0:46:06.720 a live sporting event in our second two studies. However, 0:46:06.760 --> 0:46:10.040 in each study, participants were more likely to feel and 0:46:10.160 --> 0:46:13.080 believe that they were responsible for the relevant outcome if 0:46:13.120 --> 0:46:15.880 they had generated prior thoughts related to it. 0:46:16.120 --> 0:46:18.480 You know, this is interesting because this would almost connect 0:46:18.520 --> 0:46:22.799 to Thompson's control heuristic model, except it would cut out 0:46:22.840 --> 0:46:25.640 the need for an external action. It would be kind 0:46:25.680 --> 0:46:28.799 of the control heuristic model if the only action you 0:46:28.880 --> 0:46:31.480 really needed was to think about something. 0:46:32.280 --> 0:46:35.040 Yeah, yeah, And you know they don't get into this 0:46:35.120 --> 0:46:36.960 at all, but you know, I can't help but think 0:46:37.000 --> 0:46:41.960 of you know, various religious worldviews that some of us 0:46:41.960 --> 0:46:44.040 may have come up in where there's a lot of 0:46:44.040 --> 0:46:48.440 emphasis on thought and about like thoughts, having you know, 0:46:48.719 --> 0:46:53.239 thoughts for instance, themselves being sinful and so forth, you know, 0:46:53.360 --> 0:46:57.160 and therefore having like this, this reality that goes beyond 0:46:57.520 --> 0:47:02.520 mir you know, some mint internalness. But in any rate, 0:47:02.560 --> 0:47:04.200 that would have to be something that is explored in 0:47:04.200 --> 0:47:09.560 another paper, another discussion. Now in Wegner's self is magic. 0:47:10.200 --> 0:47:13.240 His words remind me once more of the bowling example. 0:47:13.280 --> 0:47:16.880 We're just we're just talking about again, there's a disconnect 0:47:17.080 --> 0:47:21.480 between my muscle memory, my actions, and my perceptions of 0:47:21.560 --> 0:47:25.000 the ball rolling toward and hopefully hitting the pins. And 0:47:25.040 --> 0:47:27.399 it's not just me, and it's not just bowling. This 0:47:27.560 --> 0:47:31.320 exact situation applies to a great deal of the human condition. 0:47:31.520 --> 0:47:34.920 He points out that our brain only presents us with quote, 0:47:35.000 --> 0:47:38.960 a relatively impoverished account of its own operations, and our 0:47:39.000 --> 0:47:42.360 attempt to make sense of the evidence yields the impression 0:47:42.640 --> 0:47:44.840 that we are freely willing our actions. 0:47:45.760 --> 0:47:48.520 Ah. Yeah, well this is a fantastic point, because I 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:53.840 mean it not only you know, can you not understand 0:47:53.960 --> 0:47:56.560 the difference of why, you know, one time you throw 0:47:56.560 --> 0:47:58.920 a bowling ball and it was a strike, and another 0:47:58.960 --> 0:48:00.440 time you threw it and it was a butter ball. 0:48:00.520 --> 0:48:02.960 It's not like you know. It can be frustrating that 0:48:03.040 --> 0:48:06.200 you don't know what made the difference in those two attempts. 0:48:06.680 --> 0:48:08.720 But it can also like you can take a step 0:48:08.760 --> 0:48:14.160 further back and try to examine your authorship of all 0:48:14.239 --> 0:48:16.560 the actions you take, not just like throwing a bowling ball, 0:48:16.640 --> 0:48:19.960 but every single thing you do throughout the day, and 0:48:20.080 --> 0:48:24.239 it becomes increasingly unclear what the difference was that made 0:48:24.239 --> 0:48:26.400 you do anything versus anything else. 0:48:26.800 --> 0:48:28.799 Yeah. Yeah. He points out there's a certain amount of 0:48:28.800 --> 0:48:31.680 inference when it comes to connecting our thoughts to our 0:48:31.719 --> 0:48:36.080 actions in general and magical thinking, he stresses, occurs when 0:48:36.080 --> 0:48:40.760 people quote draw causal inferences relating their thought to their action, 0:48:41.360 --> 0:48:45.320 so the perception of one's own causality is subject to error, 0:48:46.040 --> 0:48:48.520 and he uses a great example here in his writing 0:48:49.080 --> 0:48:53.480 that of turning on a light in your house. Okay, 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:56.400 simple thing. We do it all the time. And the 0:48:56.440 --> 0:48:59.000 thing is, though we may do it with varying degrees 0:48:59.040 --> 0:49:02.640 of a parent will flay. So if you think to yourself, well, 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:05.759 it's dark in here, I should nay, will turn on 0:49:05.840 --> 0:49:08.399 the light, and then you do it. Well, this act 0:49:08.480 --> 0:49:10.240 may feel quite wilful. 0:49:10.239 --> 0:49:13.719 Right, but sometimes it's not that conscious or not that intentional, 0:49:13.800 --> 0:49:14.080 is it. 0:49:14.440 --> 0:49:17.759 That's right, he says. Sometimes you might think to yourself, Man, 0:49:17.800 --> 0:49:19.799 a cookie sure would be nice right now. So what 0:49:19.840 --> 0:49:22.040 do you do? You walk into the dark kitchen and 0:49:22.120 --> 0:49:24.239 absentmindedly turn on the light on the way to the 0:49:24.239 --> 0:49:27.600 cookie jar. And in this case, the act of turning 0:49:27.640 --> 0:49:31.040 on the light may quote feel less willed and more 0:49:31.160 --> 0:49:33.279 like some sort of alien control. 0:49:33.600 --> 0:49:39.280 Ah. So the connection between intention and efficacy or cause 0:49:39.280 --> 0:49:42.000 in the world can be mysterious in multiple ways. Like 0:49:42.520 --> 0:49:45.799 if I don't remember willing myself to turn on the 0:49:45.920 --> 0:49:49.160 light right before I do it, it can seem like 0:49:49.239 --> 0:49:52.279 some kind of unconscious magic force might have taken over 0:49:52.360 --> 0:49:55.160 and replaced my conscious will. But at the same time, 0:49:55.200 --> 0:49:58.279 going back to the previous study you talked about, if 0:49:58.320 --> 0:50:02.120 I do remember consciously willing something to happen, and then 0:50:02.160 --> 0:50:05.840 it happens without me taking any apparent action to cause it, 0:50:06.280 --> 0:50:09.399 I can start to wonder again if there's some mysterious 0:50:09.480 --> 0:50:15.160 connecting principle at work also regarding mysterious unconscious actions we take. 0:50:15.440 --> 0:50:18.040 I've wanted to mention that as you were talking, Rob, 0:50:18.320 --> 0:50:21.520 I just realized that I've been fiddling with the coiled 0:50:21.560 --> 0:50:24.480 cable that connects my headphones to my microphone, like wrapping 0:50:24.560 --> 0:50:27.520 it around my thumb. I was previously not conscious of 0:50:27.640 --> 0:50:29.960 doing this. I have no idea why I was doing it, 0:50:30.080 --> 0:50:30.440 don't know. 0:50:30.840 --> 0:50:32.680 Yeah, and there are so many examples of this in 0:50:32.719 --> 0:50:34.600 our life, and some of them we catch, sometimes some 0:50:34.719 --> 0:50:38.279 we don't, you know. And it's just a peek into 0:50:38.320 --> 0:50:41.319 some of the ways that an individual might develop a 0:50:41.480 --> 0:50:46.799 view that they can exert psychic, magical, or some other 0:50:46.840 --> 0:50:50.960 form of paranormal control over reality. You know, there are 0:50:50.960 --> 0:50:53.520 other possibilities, other factors involved in this as well. This 0:50:53.600 --> 0:50:57.200 is not like a you know, the one recipe for 0:50:57.280 --> 0:51:02.160 this line of thinking. But and then likewise, going back 0:51:02.320 --> 0:51:04.480 we were talking about earlier about people in power and 0:51:04.520 --> 0:51:08.200 so forth, we might factor it into cases where individuals 0:51:08.200 --> 0:51:12.960 put faith in another person's supposed powers magical, psychic, et cetera. 0:51:13.160 --> 0:51:15.560 Or even you can cut all the way away that 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:17.279 away and get back to just the idea that like, oh, 0:51:17.280 --> 0:51:21.600 this person's influential, this person can get things done. You know, 0:51:21.680 --> 0:51:25.560 if they believe it, and you know, tying in their charisma, 0:51:25.680 --> 0:51:29.600 they're you know, they're seeming authenticity, we might be more 0:51:29.719 --> 0:51:32.200 likely to buy into that, might buy into the fact 0:51:32.239 --> 0:51:34.239 that they're a great leader might buy into the fact 0:51:34.239 --> 0:51:37.440 that they can move things with their minds and so forth. 0:51:38.360 --> 0:51:41.960 So it's it's it's fascinating to to take all this, 0:51:42.520 --> 0:51:44.680 you know, to take the illusion of control and apply 0:51:44.760 --> 0:51:47.239 it to this to some of these scenarios, and think 0:51:47.280 --> 0:51:50.600 about how it could be a contributing factor to some 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:55.399 of these scenarios. Again where one one believes that they 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:58.640 have some sort of a power or feeding into this 0:51:58.640 --> 0:52:02.000 this individual that other people believe have a power. Yeah. 0:52:02.120 --> 0:52:06.920 Yeah, and it's really interesting this connection to the idea 0:52:07.000 --> 0:52:11.360 that really analyzing or interrogating the concept of willful control 0:52:11.440 --> 0:52:15.280 over things makes it more and more mysterious. Yeah, makes 0:52:15.320 --> 0:52:17.760 it seem like maybe magic could be involved. 0:52:18.040 --> 0:52:20.120 Yeah, And again there are other factors to be sure, 0:52:20.280 --> 0:52:22.520 kind of going back to the example of like sin 0:52:22.640 --> 0:52:26.200 and thought. If there is a worldview that one or 0:52:26.960 --> 0:52:28.640 you know, some sort of script or programming that one 0:52:28.680 --> 0:52:34.080 is privy to that encourages an idea of say miracles 0:52:34.280 --> 0:52:37.000 or psychic powers, you know, be it something that is 0:52:37.040 --> 0:52:40.160 religious in nature or or or even you know, non 0:52:40.200 --> 0:52:43.320 religious and more say based in you know, conspiracy thinking 0:52:43.360 --> 0:52:46.080 and so forth. You know, that also could could play 0:52:46.120 --> 0:52:48.879 a role, among other things, their whole host of things 0:52:48.880 --> 0:52:52.680 influencing our worldview and the way we interact with reality. 0:52:53.120 --> 0:52:56.640 Yeah, I have really enjoyed exploring illusion of control with you, Rob. 0:52:56.680 --> 0:52:58.400 This this has been an interesting one. 0:52:58.640 --> 0:53:04.080 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it's it's always fascinating, 0:53:04.440 --> 0:53:08.520 sometimes a little haunting when when we start teasing apart 0:53:08.600 --> 0:53:12.719 these uh, these subjects that involve our outlook on reality 0:53:12.760 --> 0:53:15.839 and so forth, and especially illusions. Uh, you know, because 0:53:15.880 --> 0:53:18.480 it's sometimes it's pointed out that you know, we are 0:53:18.520 --> 0:53:21.440 also an illusion. Our sense of self is an illusion. 0:53:21.560 --> 0:53:25.960 So uh, you know, it can feel a little a 0:53:25.960 --> 0:53:29.240 little challenging at times to h to start pulling the threads, 0:53:29.280 --> 0:53:32.879 but also rewarding in the end to all right, we're 0:53:32.880 --> 0:53:34.279 going to go ahead and close out here, but we'd 0:53:34.320 --> 0:53:36.239 love to hear from everybody if you have thoughts on 0:53:36.280 --> 0:53:38.920 the illusion of control some of the specific examples we 0:53:39.239 --> 0:53:43.440 touched on here, Even something as simple as your favorite 0:53:43.440 --> 0:53:45.960 example of a professional athlete who has some sort of 0:53:45.960 --> 0:53:48.880 a ritual that they engage in. You know, despite the 0:53:48.920 --> 0:53:51.520 fact that you know their their skill and their conditioning 0:53:51.560 --> 0:53:55.200 and so forth, is is beyond reproach. We'd love to 0:53:55.239 --> 0:53:57.600 hear from you. We'll throw out that email address here 0:53:57.640 --> 0:54:00.400 in a minute, but before we do, let's see what 0:54:00.520 --> 0:54:03.600 else do we need to mention here. Remind everyone as 0:54:03.680 --> 0:54:06.000 usual that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a 0:54:06.000 --> 0:54:09.160 science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, lister 0:54:09.239 --> 0:54:11.759 mail on Monday, short form episode on Wednesdays, in a 0:54:11.800 --> 0:54:14.640 weird house cinemon Fridays. That's our time to set aside 0:54:14.680 --> 0:54:16.960 most serious concerns and just talk about a weird movie. 0:54:17.719 --> 0:54:20.279 Let's see. Also, we'll point out that other ways you 0:54:20.560 --> 0:54:23.879 can get in touch with the show and or other 0:54:24.160 --> 0:54:27.480 listeners of the show. There's a discord group. You can 0:54:27.520 --> 0:54:29.920 email us and we'll send you that discord link. 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