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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part

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Speaker 3: three in our series on the psychology concept known as

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Speaker 3: the illusion of control. This is a cognitive illusion, meaning

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Speaker 3: a common type of error in thinking and judgment that

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Speaker 3: has been studied fairly intensively going back to about the

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventies. So, according to most of the illusion of

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Speaker 3: control literature, humans on average have a tendency too believe

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Speaker 3: we have some level of control over outcomes that are

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Speaker 3: completely outside of our influence, such as the outcome of

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Speaker 3: a lottery and other games of chance. And in situations

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Speaker 3: where we do have some control but not to control,

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Speaker 3: we on average believe that we have more control than

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Speaker 3: we do, according to illusion of control theory. Now, if

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Speaker 3: you haven't heard the other two episodes already, you should

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Speaker 3: probably go back and listen to them first. They'll help

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Speaker 3: bring you up to speed for today. But we'll do

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Speaker 3: a brief recap on what we talked about the last

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Speaker 3: couple of times. First of all, just to illustrate the

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Speaker 3: idea of illution of control, we talked about ways that

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Speaker 3: you might see people expressing or illustrating their illusions of

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Speaker 3: control in everyday life, such as the way we concentrate

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Speaker 3: on a dice throw as if this will increase our

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Speaker 3: chances of hitting the number we want, or maybe pressing

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Speaker 3: the door close button on an elevator after somebody else

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Speaker 3: has already pushed it. Questionable whether the first press actually

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Speaker 3: does anything. The second one's just ridiculous, you know, But

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Speaker 3: sometimes we just feel that way. We're in a hurry,

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Speaker 3: and we feel like this other guy, he couldn't make

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Speaker 3: it happen, couldn't close the doors, but I can.

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Speaker 2: That's right. I mean these two exams alone, along with

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Speaker 2: the walk button at crosswalks, I think we can all

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Speaker 2: relate to these on one level or another.

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Speaker 3: But another one that's been observed in research is when

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Speaker 3: driving a car, thinking that you will somehow be able

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Speaker 3: to avoid an auto collision by exerting some vague type

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Speaker 3: of control that other drivers are not capable of.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I often think that other drivers are incapable

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Speaker 2: of a lot when I'm observing their driving. But we're

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Speaker 2: talking about very specific things here, or we're getting into

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Speaker 2: that realm of control that goes above and beyond just

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Speaker 2: being able to drive your car safely and correctly.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's true I feel the same way

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Speaker 3: when driving, and yet at the same time, for everybody

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Speaker 3: else in the world, I am one of the other drivers.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. I see a lot of

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Speaker 2: not using turn signals, et cetera out there. Some people

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Speaker 2: seem in capable of that. But this need not be

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Speaker 2: a time rate about other people's driving.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 3: In part two of the series, we talked about a

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Speaker 3: bunch of different types of experiments that have found various

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Speaker 3: sorts of evidence for the illusion of control, and we

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Speaker 3: also talked about factors that tend to influence how much

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Speaker 3: illusory control we experience. Just a few examples that came

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Speaker 3: up last time. One is mood. We apparently experience more

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Speaker 3: illusory control on average when we're in a positive mood.

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Speaker 3: The salience of success or what's called success emphasis. So

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Speaker 3: we tend to experience more illusory control when we have

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Speaker 3: a string of early successful outcomes getting what we want.

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Speaker 3: So maybe if you're doing a coin flip a bunch

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Speaker 3: of times and the coin flip comes up your way

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Speaker 3: several times in a row, might start to make you

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Speaker 3: feel like somehow you're making that happen. Another factor was

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Speaker 3: the need or desire for the outcome. So the more

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Speaker 3: you want an outcome, the more likely you are to

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Speaker 3: overestimate your control over it happening. One example of experiments

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Speaker 3: that showed this was like if the prize of a

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Speaker 3: lottery is a sandwich. On average, hungry people are more

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Speaker 3: likely to show illusions of control over the lottery than

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Speaker 3: people who just stayed, who might have a more realistic

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Speaker 3: idea of their chances. Another interesting one was power. Positions

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Speaker 3: of power or feelings of power are somewhat correlated with

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Speaker 3: illusory control, so maybe having more actual control over real

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Speaker 3: things could also bring about more illusions that you can

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Speaker 3: control things you can't. And another interesting factor was the

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Speaker 3: intrusion of reality. So the illusion of control is fortunately

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Speaker 3: one of the illusions that has been found to be

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Speaker 3: fairly well neutralized or mitigated by giving somebody a reality check,

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Speaker 3: you like, remind them in the moment what the odds

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Speaker 3: on the slot machine actually are, and that seems to

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Speaker 3: somewhat reduce a person's belief that they can somehow get

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Speaker 3: better odds through their behavior. Now, also in the previous

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Speaker 3: episode we talked about in interesting paper I found by

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Speaker 3: Geno at All from twenty eleven somewhat challenging the illusion

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Speaker 3: of control framework by doing experiments showing that illusions of

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Speaker 3: control can go in both directions. So, for example, there's

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Speaker 3: a task where you're trying to solve puzzles on a

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Speaker 3: computer screen, and there's a button you can press that

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Speaker 3: will sometimes work to make the screen easier to read.

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Speaker 3: And maybe the button works fifteen percent of the time

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Speaker 3: you press it, or maybe it works eighty five percent

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Speaker 3: of the time you press it. In this type of experiment,

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Speaker 3: geno at all found that people with little control thought

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Speaker 3: they had more control than they did, but people with

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Speaker 3: a lot of control thought they had less controlled than

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Speaker 3: they actually did. And so the authors of this paper

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Speaker 3: argued that maybe this type of finding should cause us

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Speaker 3: to reevaluate the findings of the illusion of control experiments

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Speaker 3: so that we think of them not as evidence of

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Speaker 3: a systematic human tendency to overestimate our level of control,

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Speaker 3: but that that is just one half of a more

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Speaker 3: general tendency to misjudge our level of control in both directions,

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Speaker 3: So overestimating your control happens more often for outcomes that we,

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Speaker 3: to begin with, have very little or no control over.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 3: I don't know how well the Geno at All study

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Speaker 3: here challenging the illusion of control framework is held up,

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Speaker 3: but there, from what I can tell, still seems to

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Speaker 3: be a pretty robust research consensus about the illusion of

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Speaker 3: control being basically real. And I guess we should just

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Speaker 3: keep in mind that it does seem to probably be real,

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Speaker 3: but maybe it's only half the picture. Now. Another thing

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Speaker 3: that comes up in this twenty eleven paper by Geno

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Speaker 3: at All is something we haven't really focused on all

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Speaker 3: that much yet. I guess we've generally acknowledged it. But

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Speaker 3: the idea of noting with specifics the ways that false

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Speaker 3: beliefs generated by illusions of control can have real negative consequences,

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Speaker 3: like on our lives and on the world. And the

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Speaker 3: authors here site studies making these connections. So illusions of control,

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Speaker 3: when you think about it, could make you incorrectly imagine

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Speaker 3: that you are influencing other people's behavior. You know, I

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Speaker 3: think we can all remember plenty of scenarios when we

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Speaker 3: got up in our heads imagining that somebody else was

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Speaker 3: doing something or acting in a certain way because of us,

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Speaker 3: or in reaction to something we did. But then later

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Speaker 3: you realize like, oh, actually they were acting that you know,

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Speaker 3: you find you get more information, you find, oh, they

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Speaker 3: were acting that way because of something else going on

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Speaker 3: in their lives. You know, other people are living whole

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Speaker 3: lives of their own, and we often don't know what's

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Speaker 3: happening in their heads and in their lives, and so

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Speaker 3: we can have a kind of very self oriented interpretation

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Speaker 3: of other people's behavior. And one form that might take

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Speaker 3: would be or one reason that might arise is an

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Speaker 3: illusion of control.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's often this self centered nature of modeling out

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Speaker 2: other peace people's intents and mental states.

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Speaker 3: The authors here also note that people who overestimate their

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Speaker 3: level of control over outcomes might quote make bad decisions

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Speaker 3: about where to direct their efforts. And that totally makes sense, right.

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Speaker 3: You know, imagine you're trying to get something that you want,

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Speaker 3: and whether you get that outcome is influenced by multiple factors.

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Speaker 3: Maybe one factor is something that's amenable to practice and skill,

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Speaker 3: and the other factor is purely luck. If you think

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Speaker 3: that the luck based factor is within your control, you

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Speaker 3: could waste time focused on trying to manipulate that when

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Speaker 3: you should have been focused on, you know, practicing the

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Speaker 3: skill based factor, influencing what you can instead of wasting

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Speaker 3: your efforts trying to influence what you can't. Yeah, they

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Speaker 3: also note research pointing out that illusions of control could

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Speaker 3: cause you to make bad judgments about whether or not

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Speaker 3: to listen to the opinions and input of others. And

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Speaker 3: this just that totally seems true. But it also makes

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Speaker 3: me think about how if you generalize illusions of control

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Speaker 3: beyond the self. It seems to me that illusions of

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Speaker 3: control could potentially overlap with the just world illusion, you know,

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Speaker 3: the belief that people get what they deserve. And I'm

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Speaker 3: sure we can all think of cases where we've, you know,

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Speaker 3: encountered somebody who is inclined to blame other people who

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Speaker 3: are suffering misfortune for their predicament, even if it's clearly

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Speaker 3: due to factors outside of their control. Just the mentality

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Speaker 3: that you must have done something to deserve this. You know,

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Speaker 3: maybe if you had a positive attitude, this wouldn't have

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Speaker 3: happened to you, and so forth. I mean, you can

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Speaker 3: see that even in scenarios where it's logically absurd, there's

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Speaker 3: no reason to think that there would be real causal

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Speaker 3: factors of that sort, and so applying that to other

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Speaker 3: people would almost seem like a sort of universalizing or

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Speaker 3: generalizing of the principle of illusions of control.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can imagine in these scenarios where I mean,

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Speaker 2: there is kind of a self protective rationale in some

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Speaker 2: of these judgments. So something that is, you know, that

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Speaker 2: random outside of someone's control happens, something negative happens to

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Speaker 2: someone you know or someone like You're just aware of

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Speaker 2: the obvious ramification of that is that something out of

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Speaker 2: my control could happen to me, something just like this

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Speaker 2: or similar, and that puts you in that place of

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Speaker 2: not having control over your events. But if there's a

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Speaker 2: reason for it happening to this other person, then perhaps

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Speaker 2: there is a reason for it to not happen to you,

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Speaker 2: or you know, it puts something conceivably within the realm

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Speaker 2: of your control. If there is this causation you can

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Speaker 2: focus on with this other individual situation.

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Speaker 3: That's a version of the thing we're talking about with

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Speaker 3: like driving that you know, we believe the auto collisions

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Speaker 3: that you somehow would be able to avoid collisions that

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Speaker 3: other people would be less able to avoid because somehow

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Speaker 3: you can exert a type of control over driving outcomes

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Speaker 3: that other people can't.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, go to be clear, everyone can use turn signals.

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Speaker 2: I'm just saying, consider turn signals. If you haven't used

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Speaker 2: to turn signal today, treat yourself.

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Speaker 3: So I think it's pretty clear that having the false

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Speaker 3: belief that you can control outcomes that you actually can't

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Speaker 3: will have negative impacts on your life and on the

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Speaker 3: lives of others. There are like an infinite number of

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Speaker 3: imaginable scenarios where this type of illusion would be harmful,

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Speaker 3: which raises the question, then why do we still experience it?

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Speaker 3: Like why haven't we as creatures gotten a lot better

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Speaker 3: at seeing the difference between things we can influence and

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Speaker 3: things we can't. So to examine this question, I want

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Speaker 3: to come back to a chapter in an academic psychology

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Speaker 3: book that I brought up in the last episode. This

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Speaker 3: is a chapter called Illusions of Control written by a

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Speaker 3: psychologist named Suzanne C. Thompson. This is from a book

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Speaker 3: called Cognitive Illusions from Psychology Press twenty sixteen, edited by

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Speaker 3: Rudiger F. Pohl. So, this book chapter does an overview

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Speaker 3: of illusion of control research, the research that has taken

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Speaker 3: place since the nineteen seventies, comparing different methods of studying

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Speaker 3: the phenomenon and synthesizing the major findings of this subfield.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 3: Later in this chapter, Thompson does cover some of the

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Speaker 3: main explanations that have been offered in the scientific literature

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Speaker 3: for why illusions of control occur. One explanation she brings

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Speaker 3: up that she ends up not agreeing with is the

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Speaker 3: explanation given in the original paper by Ellen J. Langer

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Speaker 3: from nineteen seventy five. This was the one about where

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Speaker 3: Langer essentially said that illusions of control happen because people

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Speaker 3: literally confuse chance determined outcomes with skilled determined outcomes. So

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Speaker 3: we actually mistakenly believe the slot machine is to some

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Speaker 3: extent a game of se skill, and like elements of

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Speaker 3: the skill game cause us to really think that this

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Speaker 3: connects to the finding that skill based elements like familiarity, involvement,

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Speaker 3: and competition, which we talked about in the other episodes,

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Speaker 3: could actually cause people to have more illusions of control,

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Speaker 3: and Thompson brings up some reasons to doubt that Langer's

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Speaker 3: skill chance confusion explanation is the right one. The main

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Speaker 3: thing she brings up about this theory that resonates with

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Speaker 3: me is she says, you know, this theory doesn't explain

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Speaker 3: some of the secondary factors that change how much illusory

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Speaker 3: control we experience, for example, success emphasis, or the level

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Speaker 3: of need or desire for an outcome, etc. That just

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Speaker 3: doesn't really make sense if this is the reason we

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Speaker 3: have illusions of control. So instead, Thompson and her co

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Speaker 3: authors in previous research have offered an explanation for illusions

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Speaker 3: of control based on what they call a control heuristic.

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Speaker 3: And so, a heuristic generally means a process that people

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Speaker 3: use to try to quickly solve a problem or make

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Speaker 3: a determination, not perfectly, but efficiently. So instead of like

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Speaker 3: doing a full analysis of a situation where you really

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Speaker 3: deliberately think everything out, you can mentally use a heuristic

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Speaker 3: to come to a solution or make a determination that

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Speaker 3: is fast and good enough. So another way to think

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Speaker 3: about a heuristic is a mental shortcut. We use heuristic

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Speaker 3: reasoning all the time. Basically, anytime we're not slowing down

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Speaker 3: to do deliberate analytical thinking, we're probably using various kinds

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Speaker 3: of heuristics.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this has come up on the show a

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Speaker 2: lot because it really is quite revealing about like what

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Speaker 2: we are and how we interact with and to what

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Speaker 2: degree we're aware of our world. You know, like there's

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Speaker 2: just not enough like mental capacity and or energy to

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Speaker 2: do a deep analysis all the time. It's also not helpful.

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Speaker 2: You've got to move through the world. You have objectives

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Speaker 2: to get to and the brain is helping you get

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Speaker 2: there without folks getting lost in all the details.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So Yeah, you might think, well, wouldn't it

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Speaker 3: be better if we tried to do a really deep

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Speaker 3: analysis on everything, But no, it would not. You don't

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Speaker 3: have time to do that like that. That's not a

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Speaker 3: way that you could live a life. You have to

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Speaker 3: do most mental determination fast and cheap. So in judgments

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Speaker 3: of control, Thompson says a control heuristic is quote a

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Speaker 3: shortcut that people use to judge the extent of their

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Speaker 3: personal influence. And Thompson and co authors came up with

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Speaker 3: a model of how this informal heuristic works and they

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Speaker 3: say it as two factors. There are two things that

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Speaker 3: we in theory look at to make this calculation, fast

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Speaker 3: and dirty calculation about whether we are influencing outcomes or not.

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Speaker 3: And those two ingredients are number one, your intention to

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Speaker 3: achieve an outcome and number two a perceived connection in

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Speaker 3: the world between your actions and the desired outcome. And so,

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Speaker 3: in Thompson's own word quote, when one acts with the

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Speaker 3: intention of obtaining a particular outcome and there is a

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Speaker 3: relationship temporal, common meaning, or predictive between one's action and

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Speaker 3: the outcome, people judged that they had control over the outcome.

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Speaker 3: So to connect this to a real world example, you know,

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Speaker 3: imagine you are playing a slot machine. You have the

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Speaker 3: intention of winning a bunch of money, and you play

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Speaker 3: it a bunch and you do have a pretty big win.

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Speaker 3: Maybe it's on the day when you are wearing your

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Speaker 3: lucky underwear. So according to the control heuristic model of

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Speaker 3: Thompson and co authors here, this would be a situation

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Speaker 3: likely to give rise to illusions of control because both

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Speaker 3: conditions here are met the intention you did intend to

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Speaker 3: win the money, and then the connection you did take

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Speaker 3: some action that was connected to you getting the money.

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Speaker 3: So it was in this case you could say wearing

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Speaker 3: the lucky clothing, but in fact you don't even really

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Speaker 3: need the lucky charm to as establish this relationship. You

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Speaker 3: could have an illusion of control simply for playing the

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Speaker 3: machine because in regular play, like you have the intention

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Speaker 3: to win, and then some intermittent winnings occur, and simply

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Speaker 3: the action of playing the machine could also cause illusions

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Speaker 3: that the gambler has some control over getting that outcome

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Speaker 3: of the intermittent winnings, so they believe they have some

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Speaker 3: way to beat the system and win big. So I

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Speaker 3: was thinking about even though this particular connection would be

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Speaker 3: an illusion when it comes to like the slot machine,

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Speaker 3: you don't really control the outcomes, the control heuristic, like

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Speaker 3: many heuristics, would still be very useful because it is

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Speaker 3: good enough most of the time. Most of the time,

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Speaker 3: it does help you accurately determine your influence over all

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Speaker 3: kinds of processes every day. So I was just thinking

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Speaker 3: about cooking. You know, you're cooking in the kitchen. Maybe

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Speaker 3: you're making the tomato basil sauce that you've cooked a

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Speaker 3: bunch of times before, and this time it came out

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Speaker 3: tasting better than it usually does. And then you connect

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Speaker 3: that temporally to an action that you took, like I

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Speaker 3: added more garlic than I usually do, and then you

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Speaker 3: use that to correctly determine that your actions adding the

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Speaker 3: extra garlic influence the desirable outcome of the food tasting good.

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Speaker 3: So you know, for situations like that, this kind of

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Speaker 3: heuristic would work just fine. It's not that the heuristic

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Speaker 3: is bad. We use it all the time, and most

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Speaker 3: of the time it's good enough. You can imagine the

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Speaker 3: alternative of like being frozen in place trying to consider,

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Speaker 3: like what role chance factors outside of your control may

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Speaker 3: also have influenced how much you liked your tomato basil sauce.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's just like not a useful scenario to

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Speaker 3: be in.

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Speaker 2: And of course the thing about tomato basil sauce is

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Speaker 2: you will, in theory make it again, so this process

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Speaker 2: of testing and learning and making these judgment calls will continue.

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Speaker 3: That's right. So you could refine your understanding in the future.

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Speaker 3: I mean, maybe make it with more garlic again and

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Speaker 3: you don't like it, you can update your beliefs. But

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Speaker 3: in this situation, a heuristic that says, okay, I combine,

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Speaker 3: I intended for an outcome, I took an action and

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Speaker 3: that outcome occurred. That's good enough. I can say, then, okay,

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Speaker 3: I did have control. My action was what determined the outcome.

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Speaker 3: But of course there are situations in the world that

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Speaker 3: can turn this normally very well functioning heuristic against you.

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Speaker 3: Games of chance are one of them. Remember you know,

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Speaker 3: so you think like I have the intention of winning

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Speaker 3: the slot machine. I take the action of placing the

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Speaker 3: bets and pulling the lever. Sometimes I do get small,

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Speaker 3: intermittent payouts. Therefore I am at least partially in control.

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Speaker 3: I can beat the odds. But it's not just games

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Speaker 3: of chance. It's also everyday scenarios where the amount of

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Speaker 3: control you have over an outcome that you care about

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Speaker 3: is ambiguous. So I was trying to think of some

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Speaker 3: scenarios like this. Here's a very common one. Trying to

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Speaker 3: persuade people to agree with you about something a very

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Speaker 3: very common human activity. It occurs in workplaces and friendships

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Speaker 3: and families and sales. At every level of human life

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Speaker 3: there's persuasion, and so it's happening all the time. And

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Speaker 3: whether you succeed or fail at this task, you never

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Speaker 3: know exactly how much of the outcome was due to

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Speaker 3: factors within your control, like the kind of persuasive case

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Speaker 3: you made, or to other factors outside of your control,

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Speaker 3: like everything else going on in this other person's life

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Speaker 3: and mind. So the level of control that you have

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Speaker 3: is always kind of ambiguous. You will have intermittent successes

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Speaker 3: and failures at persuading people of things, but it's easy

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Speaker 3: to see how illusions of control can arise here. And

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Speaker 3: maybe you can start thinking that you have more influence

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Speaker 3: over people than you actually do, because like, sometimes you're

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Speaker 3: going to win at this game, and you can never

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Speaker 3: really know for sure why you one, if it was

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Speaker 3: because of something you did or because of something else.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean the reverse is true as well.

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Speaker 2: Like you often hear it's kind of like the you know,

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Speaker 2: the old thing, little pictures have big ears, right, I mean,

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Speaker 2: you might not think you're having an influence on someone

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Speaker 2: that someone's looking up to you or looking to you

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Speaker 2: or noticing how you're responding to something, but that influence

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Speaker 2: may be in place, So it kind of goes both

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Speaker 2: ways totally.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, in fact, that could be the other

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Speaker 3: side of that geno at all study, right that, And

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Speaker 3: sometimes we have a lot of influence and we underestimate

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Speaker 3: the amount we have. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But another kind of extremely common human scenario where the

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Speaker 3: feedback is ambiguous would be health outcomes. You know, we

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Speaker 3: do this all the time. It's like I feel some

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Speaker 3: kind of pain or discomfort in my body. I want

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Speaker 3: to feel better. Maybe I do something like I take

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Speaker 3: some kind of me acation, or I do some kind

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Speaker 3: of exercise, and then sometime soon after I do that something,

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Speaker 3: whatever it is, I feel better. Therefore, I'm kind of

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Speaker 3: inclined to conclude that whatever it was I did created

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Speaker 3: the outcome of me feeling better. And maybe it did

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Speaker 3: or maybe it didn't. Like without clear evidence, the kind

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Speaker 3: of clear evidence that we have from like a randomized

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Speaker 3: controlled trial, it's hard to know whether the intervention is

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Speaker 3: what did it or whether you simply started to feel

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Speaker 3: better anyway due to regression to the mean. But you know,

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Speaker 3: according to the control heuristic, you would like you would

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Speaker 3: have a hit on whatever that intervention was, and then

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Speaker 3: therefore it would feel like whatever you did was the

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Speaker 3: decisive factor. You were the controlling factor there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and even when you're aware of this,

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Speaker 2: you can you're kind of left sometimes. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: speak from my own experience here in a situation where

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Speaker 2: you're like, well, okay, my doctor said to try taking

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Speaker 2: the supplement, and I did, and then I got to

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Speaker 2: feeling better. But I could have just that could have

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Speaker 2: just been at the point at which my body was

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Speaker 2: healing back up again. You know, it's like there might

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Speaker 2: not be a connection there, but maybe I just keep

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Speaker 2: taking them because it you know, like it kind of

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Speaker 2: comes back to, you know, the reduced cost of keeping

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Speaker 2: an ambulant in your pocket. You know, it's not inconvenience me,

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Speaker 2: inconveniencing me to do this, So I guess I'll keep

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Speaker 2: doing it just in case there was some line up

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Speaker 2: between these two things.

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Speaker 3: Sure, and you never know. So if the feedback is ambiguous,

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Speaker 3: maybe it is doing something. And if it's not like

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Speaker 3: super costly or hurting you in some other way, why

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Speaker 3: not do it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it can be frustrating that a lot

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Speaker 2: of things in life end up being like this for sure.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, I think this control heuristic model makes a

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Speaker 3: lot of sense. I don't think we can say for

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Speaker 3: sure that this is the best explanation for why we

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Speaker 3: experience evolutions of control, but it seems like a good

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Speaker 3: candidate to me. It seems at least to have a

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Speaker 3: pretty to work as a pretty strong working hypothesis. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and us to the next question addressed in Thompson's chapter,

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Speaker 3: which connects to something we've we've brought up in both

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Speaker 3: directions now, which is what are the implications of illusions

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Speaker 3: of control in our lives? Like how do these illusions

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Speaker 3: affect us? And do they do they ultimately help us

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Speaker 3: more or hurt us more?

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Speaker 2: Because I think a lot of us here that we'd illusion,

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Speaker 2: and we think of illusion as unreality, and you know,

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Speaker 2: maybe we don't like the idea that we're just wandering

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Speaker 2: about in our daily lives confronted by illusions. But of

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Speaker 2: course there's a lot to our perception of reality that

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Speaker 2: is illusory, you know, as we've discussed many times in

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Speaker 2: the show before. So just because as an illusion doesn't

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Speaker 2: necessarily mean it's bad, but also illusions can be disruptive

438
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 2: as well.

439
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 3: Right, So I just think it's worth looking at ways

440
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 3: in which illusions of control can be both bad and good.

441
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 3: And spoiler alert, it seems that the evidence is that

442
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:58,880
Speaker 3: they are both. They both help us and hurt us.

443
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 3: So on the pot positive side. One thing that Thompson

444
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 3: talks about is, you know, the idea that human beings

445
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 3: are clearly motivated to believe that we have agency over

446
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 3: outcomes in our lives, and research has found that in general,

447
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:16,880
Speaker 3: belief in quote control and a sense of self efficacy

448
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,879
Speaker 3: the fact that you have agency over your life, you

449
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 3: can take actions and they do have an effect. That

450
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 3: those things are correlated with desirable outcomes like better coping

451
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 3: with stress, better performance on tasks, and some health related outcomes.

452
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 3: Sometimes health has been shown to benefit from these feelings.

453
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 3: So it seems that in multiple ways, it is good

454
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 3: for us to believe that we have the ability to

455
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 3: affect what happens in our lives. And you can see how.

456
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,400
Speaker 3: Of course, in one sense that would be good, because

457
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 3: it is actually good to have control over your own

458
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 3: life to a certain extent, you know, so like it

459
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 3: is good to in reality be in control over your fate.

460
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:02,360
Speaker 3: But would the belief in self efficacy itself be beneficial

461
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 3: even if it weren't always true, And it seems there

462
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,360
Speaker 3: is some research indicating the answer to this, at least

463
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 3: in some ways is yes. So there are some findings

464
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 3: that show that a tendency toward illusions of control might

465
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 3: help us avoid discouragement when pursuing a goal. So the

466
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 3: illusion of control could help inculcate a sense of persistence

467
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 3: in goal attainment behavior, especially when facing difficult conditions or setbacks,

468
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 3: and also illusory control seems to help in mitigating disappointment

469
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 3: leading to negative mood. It possibly is even protective to

470
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: some degree against depression. So to the extent that it

471
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 3: is able to provide sort of like mood regulation and

472
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 3: help maintain motivation and protect against depression, that seems like

473
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 3: that would have very clear benefits on well being. Yeah,

474
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 3: another thing that's interesting is we talked in the last

475
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 3: episode about research finding an association between illusory control and

476
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 3: personal power. But the kind of interesting thing is that

477
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 3: that causation could go either way or both ways. So

478
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,439
Speaker 3: it could be that positions of power cause people to

479
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,639
Speaker 3: have more illusions of control. But it could also be

480
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 3: that illusions of control tend to increase the likelihood that

481
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 3: somebody ends up in a position of power. So it

482
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 3: could literally lead to you being essentially better able to

483
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 3: attain goals, or I don't know, maybe having other people

484
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 3: view you more positively and wanting to promote you in

485
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 3: some way or empower you in some way. So I

486
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 3: don't know. When you combine all this together, it looks

487
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 3: like there's pretty good reason to think that illusions of

488
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 3: control help maintain positive emotions and can help a person

489
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 3: maintain a sort of confidence or action orientation, essentially the

490
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 3: motivation to keep actively doing things to try to achieve

491
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:02,639
Speaker 3: your goals. But it's not all flowers and butterflies. We

492
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier that list of negative consequences that have been

493
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 3: found to flow from illusions of control, and Thompson mentions

494
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 3: a bunch of negative consequences as well. I'm not going

495
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 3: to get into all of them here because there's some

496
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 3: overlap with what we've already talked about and so forth,

497
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 3: but just briefly, a couple of things. One is, remember

498
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 3: the study we talked about last time from McKenna from

499
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,400
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety three, which found the tendency to believe that

500
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 3: you would be able to exert more control than other

501
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 3: drivers on the road. Subsequent research by Schlehofer from twenty ten.

502
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 3: Schlehofer and co authors from twenty ten found that people

503
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 3: who show greater illusions of control about driving were also

504
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 3: more likely to drive while trying to use a cell

505
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 3: phone simultaneously in reality, and you can kind of see

506
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 3: how that would extend from the belief that you have

507
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 3: more control over chance based outcomes than other people do.

508
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:00,480
Speaker 3: But it Actually, in this case, lea leads to a

509
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 3: behavior that compromises your control, you know, it compromises your

510
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 3: driving ability and makes a fatal crash more likely. And

511
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 3: there are apparently a lot of examples like this where

512
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 3: people who exhibit greater illusions of control, which might not

513
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 3: necessarily be a you know, like a stable feature of

514
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 3: a person's personality across their whole life. It could also

515
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 3: be situational. But in situations where people show greater illusions

516
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 3: of control, it has been linked to taking fewer protective

517
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 3: measures against diseases, to making worse decisions as financial traders,

518
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 3: and to engaging in problem gambling behaviors. In fact, there

519
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 3: was one thing in particular in this part of the

520
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 3: chapter Thompson brought up that I thought was an interesting finding.

521
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 3: So this was from a paper by Cowley at all

522
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, and it found that there was a

523
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 3: difference in how high illusory control gamblers would review a

524
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 3: gambling session after it was over versus people who had

525
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 3: low illusory control. So you have gamblers, they go out,

526
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 3: they gamble a bunch and then they lose a bunch

527
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 3: of money, and then they are asked to reflect back

528
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 3: on the gaming session. Apparently, high illusory control gamblers would

529
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 3: focus on their highest individual win within the session, whereas

530
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 3: low illusory control gamblers would have a more total view

531
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 3: of the session and note like their the final outcome,

532
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 3: like what were their winnings or losings at the end

533
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 3: of it. And so I thought that was really interesting. So,

534
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 3: if you're in a condition where you're especially prone to

535
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 3: illusions of control about gambling, apparently the salient piece of

536
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 3: information to you about the whole session was like your

537
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 3: best hand of the night, your best payout at the

538
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 3: slot machine, in a single moment, and maybe even though

539
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 3: you lost everything overall, the important thing to remember was

540
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 3: that moment when everything was looking really good.

541
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 2: And it's kind of twisted, right, because it's in it

542
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 2: to a sense, it's looking on the sunny side of life, right,

543
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 2: It's being an optimist. It's looking back on your experiences

544
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 2: and not focusing on the negatives but focusing on the positives.

545
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 2: But and that's great. I mean that to a certain extent,

546
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 2: that's what you should do. But also you want to

547
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 2: be able to correctly learn from your mistakes and do

548
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 2: an accurate postop on things that you've done in life.

549
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 3: That's a great point that this is an instinct that

550
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 3: in other context is a very positive one. Like if

551
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 3: you can, you know, if you had you know, you

552
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 3: had a rough day or something, if you can like

553
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 3: step back and focus on the best thing that happened

554
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 3: all day, well, you know, that's wonderful. That's like a

555
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 3: great thing to be able to do, unless that's like

556
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 3: guiding you in how you should invest your money in

557
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 3: the future or something.

558
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting that, like the main case we're talking

559
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 2: about here gambling, especially with you know, slot machines and whatnot,

560
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 2: but just sort of gambling in general. It's basically it's

561
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 2: an artific scenario that lines up with a lot of

562
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 2: real life survival experiences that are a part of our

563
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 2: heritage and a part of our evolutionary development. You know.

564
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 2: But you know, there's competition for resources and so forth,

565
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 2: the use of skill, or at least a perception of

566
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 2: the use of skill in those pursuits. But the world

567
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 2: of gambling, the world of games in general, like even

568
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 2: if you're not playing for stakes, it is an artificial

569
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 2: construct that involves a lot of those survival activities.

570
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, and in fact interesting thing Thompson brings

571
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 3: up in this chapter. She highlights how the gambling industry

572
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 3: directly exploits known illusion of control triggers to pull you

573
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 3: in that like slot machines, it's almost like they were

574
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 3: designed by somebody who read a book chapter on the

575
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 3: illusion of control, and they were doing a checklist like okay, familiarity, involvement, success, emphasis,

576
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 3: They really like quite fiendishly like hit on all of

577
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 3: the things that seem to elicit higher illusions of control.

578
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 3: Another interesting thing about illusion of control and gambling brought

579
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 3: up in this chapter is a neuroimaging study. This was

580
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 3: research done by hudgens Haney at All in twenty thirteen.

581
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 3: They're studying real time brain activity of people who had

582
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 3: gambling problems versus non problem gamblers when playing games that

583
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 3: have some level of control like poker, versus games that

584
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 3: are purely chance based like roulette. And the interesting finding

585
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 3: was that, Okay, you take people who don't have a

586
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 3: history of gambling problems, they show a very different level

587
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 3: of neural engagement in skill games versus chance games. So

588
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 3: you put them in a game of skill, they're going

589
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 3: to be very engaged. You put them in a game

590
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 3: of chance, and they will show less activity in the

591
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 3: visual and prefrontal cortex than they did in the skill game.

592
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 3: People who have a history of gambling problems did not

593
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 3: exhibit this same difference, so for them that in chance

594
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 3: games the visual and prefrontal cortex was fully engaged as

595
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 3: it was in skill games. Which, you know, it's hard

596
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 3: to know exactly how to interpret that, but so at

597
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 3: least one possible way of thinking about that is that

598
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 3: is that when you have high illusions of control, you

599
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 3: are looking at a chance based game as if there's

600
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 3: like some way that you can engage to do better

601
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 3: at it. You're still scanning the table for advantages, but

602
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,400
Speaker 3: you know, actually, if it's like roulette, there's nothing you

603
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 3: can do. Now. One good thing that Thompson mentions is

604
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 3: that there's some evidence that problem gamblers illusions of control

605
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 3: can be mitigated by interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy, and

606
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 3: like we talked about last time, at least in some situations,

607
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 3: studies have found that illusions of control seem to be

608
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,399
Speaker 3: well mitigated by a basic reality check.

609
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and there are a lot of

610
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,879
Speaker 2: different versions of this, but yeah, like with certain anxieties,

611
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 2: issues for example, they're you can be taught to like

612
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 2: put your thoughts on trial. I've heard it referred to

613
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 2: as such, you know, where you're you're taking something that

614
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 2: is just like a almost kind of an ambient thought

615
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 2: or way of thinking in your mind, maybe not even

616
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 2: expressed verbally or otherwise, but take a moment to collect

617
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 2: the thought and then properly analyze it and saying is

618
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 2: this likely? Is this reasonable? And so forth? And yeah,

619
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: and it you know, it can it can work very

620
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 2: well with anxiety to you know, within you know limits,

621
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 2: And then it makes sense that it would work in

622
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 2: these contexts as well, you know, like Okay, let's let's

623
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 2: take this impulse, let's slow it down, and let's actually

624
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 2: let's look at it from both sides here.

625
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. So I don't know,

626
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 3: I think this is this is interesting that the illusion

627
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 3: of control is something that is fundamentally objectively an illusion,

628
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 3: an illusion like it does generate misperceptions and false beliefs,

629
00:35:56,600 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 3: incorrect judgments, but to some degree it does have a

630
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 3: positive side. It seems illusions of control probably do help

631
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 3: improve mood and probably do help us persist in attaining

632
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 3: difficult goals. Maintain you know, motivation and action orientation while

633
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 3: we're trying to implement making positive changes in our lives

634
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 3: and so forth. But then again, on the negative side, it,

635
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 3: of course, false beliefs can lead to all kinds of

636
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 3: problems and negative outcomes in the world, poor choices about

637
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 3: how to invest our time and efforts, and in the

638
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 3: worst cases can lead to dangerous and destructive behaviors. So

639
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 3: it's a complex phenomenon that affects our lives in both directions.

640
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

641
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 2: Now, given all that we've discussed regarding the illusion of control,

642
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 2: you know, it should come as no surprise that some

643
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 2: have linked the concept to magical thinking in general, to

644
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 2: belief in the pairing normal, because you know, what is

645
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 2: the gap between some level of belief and say the

646
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 2: power of prayer, holy amulets, lucky objects, lucky traditions, and

647
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 2: some level of belief and say personal psychic ability or

648
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 2: other paranormal concepts. You know, I would even argue that

649
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:19,760
Speaker 2: there's there's there's more than a little bit of crossover

650
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 2: between these things, in part based on my own experiences,

651
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 2: my own observations of my of how I approach certain situations.

652
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 2: HU take bowling, for example, Oh boy, So bowling, great game,

653
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 2: great fun. I maybe play it two or three times

654
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:37,879
Speaker 2: per year. I don't know about you, Joe.

655
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 3: I have not bold in quite some time, but I

656
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 3: would love to. I enjoyed bowling a lot when I

657
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 3: was a kid. It was like one of my I

658
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 3: never did it all that much, but I feel like

659
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 3: on those rare occasions when it was like, what would

660
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 3: you really like to do today? Would I would request bowling?

661
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 3: But of course with the bumpers, please.

662
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, those bumpers can definitely help. Now, one of the

663
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 2: interesting things about bowling is that, unlike a lot of

664
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 2: the examples we've been touching on, bowling is a game

665
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 2: of skill. So you initially, your initial role directly sets

666
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 2: the speed and trajectory of the ball as it heads

667
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 2: towards the pins. Now where it gets interesting is, of course,

668
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 2: a skilled player, I'm assuming, may feel entirely more in

669
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 2: control of what happens than me when eyebowl, though we've

670
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:30,280
Speaker 2: plenty of info to suggest that even they, even an expert,

671
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 2: even a professional bowler, may feel like they have less

672
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 2: control than they do. And obviously plenty of pro athletes

673
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 2: engage in some kind of good luck ritual I'd love

674
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 2: to hear from sports fans out there if you have

675
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 2: some really telling examples of this, But I feel like

676
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 2: you kind of hear about them all the time. Like

677
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 2: you'll have people that are like literally performing at the

678
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:54,400
Speaker 2: very you know, top of their sport and are very

679
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 2: competent from a skill and conditioning standpoint. They have all

680
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:00,959
Speaker 2: the experience in the world, you know, nobody can touch them,

681
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 2: and yet they will perhaps also engage in some level

682
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 2: of superstitious you know, ritual luck scenario.

683
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. That raises a lot of questions in

684
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 3: my mind. But continue and maybe we'll come back.

685
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 2: So, whether you are a pro bowler or you know,

686
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 2: just a casual bowler like myself, then maybe bowls, you know,

687
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 2: a few times a year. The scenario is still the same.

688
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 2: Once you send that bowl down the lane, once it

689
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:32,319
Speaker 2: has left your hand, it's all set in motion. And

690
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 2: yet I certainly have time and time again caught myself

691
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 2: in that those moments before it hits trying to nudge

692
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 2: the ball with my mind toward the center pin, you know,

693
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 2: not not actually you know, rationally believing I have that

694
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 2: power to do it, not like turning to everyone and

695
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 2: being like all right, watch this, everybody. I'm gonna I'm

696
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 2: gonna bowl and then I'm gonna use my telekinesis to

697
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 2: get a stride. No, no, no, but I'll catch myself doing

698
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 2: something either with my hands or with my will, trying

699
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 2: to will the ball towards the pins.

700
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. You know what can I say something that

701
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 3: I think helps influence that? Even though this is a

702
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 3: pure misunderstanding, but rob, if you know what I'm talking about,

703
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 3: if you watch pro bowlers, they don't just throw the

704
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 3: ball straight. They put some kind of spin on it

705
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 3: where it like arcs or hooks. Do you know what

706
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:25,839
Speaker 3: I'm talking about?

707
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they're a number of those techniques. Yeah,

708
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 2: my father in law at one point was showing me

709
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:33,400
Speaker 2: some of those and trying to teach me how to

710
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 2: do the spin. And also, I mean, a very skilled

711
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 2: bowler can do a lot of impressive things. But it

712
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 2: doesn't change the fact that once the ball eats their hand,

713
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 2: it is set in motion. There's no more that there's

714
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 2: no telekinesis involved.

715
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 3: That's right, It's all there in the initial throw. So

716
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 3: that was their moment of control was when they were

717
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 3: throwing it. It's not you know, they're not using telekinesis afterwards,

718
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 3: but it can kind of look like it because it's

719
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 3: like hooking in a way we're used to, like the

720
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 3: amateurs used to throw, throwing the ball just straight, but

721
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 3: when you put the kind of spin on it that

722
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 3: makes it curve like that, it encourages the idea that

723
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 3: somehow the bowler is continuing to exert control after it

724
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 3: has left their hand. Really, sometimes in the throw.

725
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, sometimes there's a flourish or something, and I

726
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 2: guess to less experienced bowlers too, like myself is like

727
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,839
Speaker 2: sometimes there is a real disconnect between what you think

728
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: you're about to do and what the ball actually does,

729
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 2: and that can go either way. You can feel like

730
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 2: in the moment you are in a bowling movie and

731
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 2: then you get a gutterball, or you can feel like

732
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 2: you kind of fumbled it and oh you got a

733
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 2: surprise strike out of it. So these sorts of things

734
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 2: are possible. So again, I don't actually believe I can

735
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:47,279
Speaker 2: mentally manipulate bowling balls from a distance, but in the

736
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 2: heat of the moment, there is that feeling that I

737
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 2: don't know, it's not even a feeling that I should

738
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 2: try to do it. I just catch myself doing it,

739
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 2: and I feel like this is also interconnected with the

740
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 2: consciously ambiguous notion of intent, aim, and execution. So anyway,

741
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 2: this connection isn't just something that I've been thinking about.

742
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 2: It's also referenced in the sources I was looking at.

743
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 2: I was looking at a couple of different papers. Both

744
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 2: of them involve social psychologist Daniel M. Wegner, who of

745
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight through twenty thirteen. I believe he's come

746
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 2: up on the show before, so he mentions this connection

747
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 2: between magical thinking and the illusion of control in two

748
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:30,800
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, self is Magic. And then there's also

749
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 2: a paper I was looking at on which he was

750
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,240
Speaker 2: a co author, Everyday Magical Powers the Role of Apparent

751
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 2: mental Causation and the over Estimation of Personal Influence. The

752
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 2: lead author on that was psychologist Emily Pronin. This was

753
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 2: from two thousand and six. Both of these referenced Thompson,

754
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 2: by the way. Now. In the prone and paper, the

755
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: authors argue that magical thinking may serve a motivational purpose,

756
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 2: especially in times of stress and uncertainty, and they point

757
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,319
Speaker 2: to several different documented cases of this from Arise in

758
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 2: Magical thinking among Germans in the interwar period and police

759
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 2: officers working in high risk environments. They also point out

760
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 2: some health related scenarios that I believe that this is

761
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 2: directly from Thompson's research, and then they write, quote, even

762
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 2: when people recognize the control over life events may be

763
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 2: impossible to achieve, magical beliefs may arise out of a

764
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 2: motivation to find meaning in that which they cannot control.

765
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 2: So they've gotten to point out that quote, basic cognitive

766
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 2: errors involving the perception of causal relationships when only non

767
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:41,760
Speaker 2: causal associations are present, along with a need to control

768
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 2: things and uncontrollable situations, can lead to these kinds of

769
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 2: acts and beliefs. And indeed, they stress that these sorts

770
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 2: of acts may occur even when we rationally deny the connection.

771
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 2: And this touches on sort of like the dual nature

772
00:43:57,239 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 2: of human cognition and belief that we've touched on many

773
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 2: times before. I mean, you can you can have superstitious

774
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 2: ideas while also having rational ideas in your head, you know,

775
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 2: we can. We can balance these things and switch back

776
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 2: and forth between them, and we're not necessarily completely chained

777
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,359
Speaker 2: to one extreme or the other. Right.

778
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 3: And another way of thinking about it is like we

779
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 3: we don't always act on what we know, or we

780
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 3: don't always act as if we know what we know right.

781
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 2: One example that that discussed in this paper is okay,

782
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 2: thinking ill of someone and then something bad happens to

783
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 2: that person you were thinking ill of. They point out

784
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 2: that this may well cause feelings of guilt in you,

785
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 2: despite the fact that mere feelings cannot hurt someone. Your

786
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 2: your thoughts of ill will are not going to actually

787
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 2: harm someone without without some other things happening in between.

788
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 2: You know that pure thought is not going to do it,

789
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 2: But in one of these situations you may feel that guilt.

790
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 2: And they stressed that what the quote generating consistent thoughts

791
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:06,359
Speaker 2: related to an event just prior to its occurrence may

792
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: be sufficient to induce feelings of authorship for the event.

793
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 2: So they carried out a series of experiments that they

794
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 2: discussed this paper involving subjects being told about appeers physical

795
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 2: ailments on the on the flip side, being told about

796
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 2: a peers athletic success. And they also did a third

797
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 2: and a fourth experiment involving real athletic competitions, and they

798
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 2: summarized by saying quote. In each study, the relevant outcome

799
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 2: occurred regardless of participants thoughts. It was experimentally predetermined in

800
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 2: our first two studies, and it was part of a

801
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,360
Speaker 2: live sporting event in our second two studies. However, in

802
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 2: each study, participants were more likely to feel and believe

803
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 2: that they were responsible for the relevant outcome if they

804
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 2: had generated prior thoughts related to it.

805
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 3: You know, this is interesting because this would almost connect

806
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 3: to Thompson's control heuristic model, except it would cut out

807
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 3: the need for an external action. It would be kind

808
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 3: of the control heuristic model if the only action you

809
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 3: really needed was to think about something.

810
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you know they don't get into this

811
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 2: at all, but you know, I can't help but think of,

812
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 2: you know, various religious worldviews that some of us may

813
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 2: have come up in where there's a lot of emphasis

814
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 2: on thought and about like thoughts, having you know, thoughts

815
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 2: for instance, themselves being sinful and so forth, you know,

816
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 2: and therefore having like this this reality that goes beyond mirror,

817
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 2: you know, some mental internalness. But in any area that

818
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:39,360
Speaker 2: would have to be something that is explored in another paper,

819
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:45,240
Speaker 2: another discussion now in Wagner's self is magic. His words

820
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 2: remind me once more of the bowling example. We're just

821
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 2: we're just talking about again, there's a disconnect between my

822
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:56,399
Speaker 2: muscle memory, my actions, and my perceptions of the ball

823
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,799
Speaker 2: rolling toward and hopefully hitting the pins. And it's not

824
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 2: just me, and it's not just bowling. This exact situation

825
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 2: applies to a great deal of the human condition. He

826
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 2: points out that our brain only presents us with quote,

827
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 2: a relatively impoverished account of its own operations, and our

828
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 2: attempt to make sense of the evidence yields the impression

829
00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:19,320
Speaker 2: that we are freely willing our actions.

830
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 4: Ah.

831
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is a fantastic point, because I mean

832
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 3: it not only you know, can you not understand the

833
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 3: difference of why, you know, one time you throw a

834
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 3: bowling ball and it was a strike and another time

835
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 3: you threw it and it was a gutter ball? It's

836
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 3: not like, you know, it can be frustrating that you

837
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 3: don't know what made the difference in those two attempts,

838
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,240
Speaker 3: but it can also like you can take a step

839
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 3: further back and try to examine your authorship of all

840
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:51,080
Speaker 3: the actions you take, not just like throwing a bowling ball,

841
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:54,480
Speaker 3: but every single thing you do throughout the day, and

842
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 3: it becomes increasingly unclear what the difference was that made

843
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 3: you do anything versus anything else.

844
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

845
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 4: Yeah.

846
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 2: He points out there's a certain amount of inference when

847
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 2: it comes to connecting our thoughts to our actions in

848
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 2: general and magical thinking. He stresses o curs when people

849
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:15,240
Speaker 2: quote draw causal inferences relating their thought to their action,

850
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,800
Speaker 2: so the perception of one's own causality is subject to error,

851
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 2: and he uses a great example here in his writing

852
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:26,800
Speaker 2: that of turning on a light in your house. Okay,

853
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 2: simple thing. We do it all the time. And the

854
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 2: thing is, though we may do it with varying degrees

855
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:37,319
Speaker 2: of apparent wilfulness. So if you think to yourself, what's

856
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,719
Speaker 2: dark in here? I should, nay will turn on the light,

857
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 2: and then you do it. Well, this act may feel

858
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 2: quite wilful.

859
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 3: Right, But sometimes it's not that conscious or not that intentional,

860
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 3: is it?

861
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:52,239
Speaker 2: That's right? He says. Sometimes you might think to yourself, man,

862
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 2: a cookie sure would be nice right now? So what

863
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 2: do you do? You walk into the dark kitchen and

864
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 2: absent mindedly turn on the light on the way to

865
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 2: the cookie jar. And in this case, the act of

866
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 2: turning on the light may quote feel less willed and

867
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 2: more like some sort of alien control.

868
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 3: Ah. So the connection between intention and efficacy or cause

869
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 3: in the world can be mysterious in multiple ways. If

870
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 3: I don't remember willing myself to turn on the light

871
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 3: right before I do it, it can seem like some

872
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 3: kind of unconscious magic force might have taken over and

873
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,879
Speaker 3: replaced my conscious will. But at the same time, going

874
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 3: back to the previous study you talked about, if I

875
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:36,759
Speaker 3: do remember consciously willing something to happen, and then it

876
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:40,359
Speaker 3: happens without me taking any apparent action to cause it,

877
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:43,879
Speaker 3: I can start to wonder again if there's some mysterious

878
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 3: connecting principle at work. Also regarding mysterious unconscious actions we take.

879
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 3: I've wanted to mention that as you were talking, Rob,

880
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 3: I just realized that I've been fiddling with the coiled

881
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 3: cable that connects my headphones to my microphone, like wrapping

882
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 3: it around my thumb. I was previously not conscious of

883
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:04,440
Speaker 3: doing this. I have no idea why I was doing it,

884
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 3: don't know.

885
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there are so many examples of this in

886
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 2: our life, and some of them we catch, sometimes some

887
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:12,759
Speaker 2: we don't, you know, and it's just a peek into

888
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 2: some of the ways that an individual might develop a

889
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:21,279
Speaker 2: view that they can exert psychic, magical, or some other

890
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 2: form of paranormal control over reality. You know, there are

891
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 2: other possibilities, other factors involved in this as well. This

892
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 2: is not like, you know, the one recipe for this

893
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 2: line of thinking. But and then likewise, going back we

894
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier, about people in power and so forth,

895
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,320
Speaker 2: we might factor it into cases where individuals put faith

896
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 2: in another person's supposed powers magical, psychic, etc. Or even

897
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 2: you can cut all the way a way that away

898
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:51,759
Speaker 2: and get back to just the idea that like, oh,

899
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 2: this person's influential, this person can get things done. You know,

900
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 2: if they believe it, and you know, tying in their charisma,

901
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 2: they're you know, they're seeming authenticity, we might be more

902
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 2: likely to buy into that, might buy into the fact

903
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:08,760
Speaker 2: that they're a great leader, might buy into the fact

904
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:11,920
Speaker 2: that they can move things with their minds, and so forth.

905
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's fascinating to take all of this,

906
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 2: you know, to take the illusion of control and apply

907
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 2: it to this, to some of these scenarios, and think

908
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 2: about how it could be a contributing factor to some

909
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 2: of these scenarios again where one one believes that they

910
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 2: have some sort of a power or feeding into this

911
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 2: this individual that other people believe have a power.

912
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 4: Yeah.

913
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, And and it's really interesting this connection to the

914
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 3: idea that really analyzing or interrogating the concept of willful

915
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 3: control over things makes it more and more mysterious. Yeah,

916
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,240
Speaker 3: makes it seem like maybe magic could be involved.

917
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again there are other factors to be sure,

918
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 2: kind of going back to the example of like sin

919
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 2: and thought. If there is a worldview that one or

920
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:02,920
Speaker 2: or you know, some sort of script or programming the

921
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:07,839
Speaker 2: one is privy to that encourages an idea of say

922
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,319
Speaker 2: miracles or psychic powers, you know, be it something that

923
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 2: is religious in nature or or or even you know,

924
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:16,799
Speaker 2: non religious and more say based in uh you know,

925
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 2: conspiracy thinking and so forth.

926
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 4: Uh.

927
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 2: You know, that also could could play a role, among

928
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 2: other things. Their whole host of things influencing are our

929
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:27,160
Speaker 2: worldview and the way we interact with reality.

930
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 3: Yeah. I have really enjoyed exploring illusion of control with you, Rob,

931
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 3: This this has been an interesting one.

932
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:33,399
Speaker 4: Yeah.

933
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:39,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it's it's always fascinating. Sometimes

934
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 2: a little haunting when when we start teasing apart these uh,

935
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 2: these subjects that involve our outlook on reality and so forth,

936
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:51,279
Speaker 2: and especially illusions. Uh, you know, because it's sometimes it's

937
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 2: pointed out that you know, we are also an illusion.

938
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 2: Our sense of self is an illusion. So you know,

939
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,840
Speaker 2: it can feel a little a little challenging at times

940
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:05,319
Speaker 2: to start pulling the threads, but also rewarding in the

941
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,880
Speaker 2: end too. All right, we're going to go ahead and

942
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:09,840
Speaker 2: close out here, but we'd love to hear from everybody

943
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:12,000
Speaker 2: if you have thoughts on the illusion of control some

944
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 2: of the specific examples we touched on here, Even something

945
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:19,720
Speaker 2: as simple as your favorite example of a professional athlete

946
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:21,760
Speaker 2: who has some sort of a ritual that they engage

947
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 2: in despite the fact that their skill on their conditioning

948
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,879
Speaker 2: and so forth is beyond reproach, we'd love to hear

949
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 2: from you. We'll throw out that email address here in

950
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 2: a minute, but before we do, let's see what else

951
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 2: do we need to mention here. Remind everyone, as usual

952
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,240
Speaker 2: that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast,

953
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Mister Mail on

954
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 2: Monday's short form episode on Wednesdays, in a weird house

955
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 2: cinemaon Fridays. That's our time to set aside most serious

956
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 2: concerns and just talk about a weird movie. Let's see. Also,

957
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,960
Speaker 2: we'll point out that other ways you can get in

958
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 2: touch with the show and or other listeners of the show.

959
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:02,680
Speaker 2: There's a discord group. You can email us and we'll

960
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:05,440
Speaker 2: send you that discord link. If you're on Facebook, there

961
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:07,439
Speaker 2: is a Facebook group. It's called the Stuff to Blow

962
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 2: your Mind discussion module. Seek it out and you can

963
00:54:10,120 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 2: request access and you just have to answer a very

964
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 2: easy trivia question to gain access. So if you want

965
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:18,759
Speaker 2: to interact with other listeners, that's a great place to go.

966
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 2: And in general, yeah, we thank everyone out there for

967
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:26,360
Speaker 2: listening to the show, and if you have time and

968
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:28,480
Speaker 2: the power to do so, give us some stars, give

969
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:30,839
Speaker 2: us a nice review somewhere that also helps us.

970
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 3: Out huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

971
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

972
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:39,800
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

973
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:41,839
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

974
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

975
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:53,240
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

976
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,239
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977
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:59,960
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978
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