WEBVTT - The Illusion of Control, Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.599 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:17.960 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.119 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:24.520 three in our series on the psychology concept known as 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:29.720 the illusion of control. This is a cognitive illusion, meaning 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.960 a common type of error in thinking and judgment that 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.240 has been studied fairly intensively going back to about the 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:41.320 nineteen seventies. So, according to most of the illusion of 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:46.239 control literature, humans on average have a tendency too believe 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.839 we have some level of control over outcomes that are 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.280 completely outside of our influence, such as the outcome of 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.120 a lottery and other games of chance. And in situations 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.640 where we do have some control but not to control, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:04.520 we on average believe that we have more control than 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.680 we do, according to illusion of control theory. Now, if 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:09.880 you haven't heard the other two episodes already, you should 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.600 probably go back and listen to them first. They'll help 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.160 bring you up to speed for today. But we'll do 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.280 a brief recap on what we talked about the last 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.600 couple of times. First of all, just to illustrate the 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.200 idea of illution of control, we talked about ways that 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:28.399 you might see people expressing or illustrating their illusions of 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.320 control in everyday life, such as the way we concentrate 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.480 on a dice throw as if this will increase our 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.000 chances of hitting the number we want, or maybe pressing 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.560 the door close button on an elevator after somebody else 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.000 has already pushed it. Questionable whether the first press actually 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.120 does anything. The second one's just ridiculous, you know, But 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.080 sometimes we just feel that way. We're in a hurry, 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.800 and we feel like this other guy, he couldn't make 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.240 it happen, couldn't close the doors, but I can. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.280 That's right. I mean these two exams alone, along with 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.960 the walk button at crosswalks, I think we can all 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:07.760 relate to these on one level or another. 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.040 But another one that's been observed in research is when 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.320 driving a car, thinking that you will somehow be able 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:19.000 to avoid an auto collision by exerting some vague type 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.200 of control that other drivers are not capable of. 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:26.559 I mean, I often think that other drivers are incapable 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.040 of a lot when I'm observing their driving. But we're 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.680 talking about very specific things here, or we're getting into 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:38.800 that realm of control that goes above and beyond just 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.000 being able to drive your car safely and correctly. 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:44.520 Yeah, I mean, it's true I feel the same way 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.320 when driving, and yet at the same time, for everybody 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.080 else in the world, I am one of the other drivers. 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.160 I mean, I don't know. I see a lot of 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.480 not using turn signals, et cetera out there. Some people 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.720 seem in capable of that. But this need not be 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.040 a time rate about other people's driving. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:02.760 Now. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:04.760 In part two of the series, we talked about a 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.200 bunch of different types of experiments that have found various 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.200 sorts of evidence for the illusion of control, and we 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.680 also talked about factors that tend to influence how much 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.400 illusory control we experience. Just a few examples that came 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.519 up last time. One is mood. We apparently experience more 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.720 illusory control on average when we're in a positive mood. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.919 The salience of success or what's called success emphasis. So 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.920 we tend to experience more illusory control when we have 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.280 a string of early successful outcomes getting what we want. 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.080 So maybe if you're doing a coin flip a bunch 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.920 of times and the coin flip comes up your way 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.440 several times in a row, might start to make you 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:49.760 feel like somehow you're making that happen. Another factor was 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.880 the need or desire for the outcome. So the more 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.800 you want an outcome, the more likely you are to 0:03:55.920 --> 0:04:01.120 overestimate your control over it happening. One example of experiments 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.320 that showed this was like if the prize of a 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.280 lottery is a sandwich. On average, hungry people are more 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.640 likely to show illusions of control over the lottery than 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.120 people who just stayed, who might have a more realistic 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:17.600 idea of their chances. Another interesting one was power. Positions 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.880 of power or feelings of power are somewhat correlated with 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.560 illusory control, so maybe having more actual control over real 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.120 things could also bring about more illusions that you can 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:33.120 control things you can't. And another interesting factor was the 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:37.520 intrusion of reality. So the illusion of control is fortunately 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.120 one of the illusions that has been found to be 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.720 fairly well neutralized or mitigated by giving somebody a reality check, 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.560 you like, remind them in the moment what the odds 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.280 on the slot machine actually are, and that seems to 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.560 somewhat reduce a person's belief that they can somehow get 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:57.480 better odds through their behavior. Now, also in the previous 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.200 episode we talked about in interesting paper I found by 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.279 Geno at All from twenty eleven somewhat challenging the illusion 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:09.520 of control framework by doing experiments showing that illusions of 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:14.320 control can go in both directions. So, for example, there's 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.640 a task where you're trying to solve puzzles on a 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.800 computer screen, and there's a button you can press that 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:24.200 will sometimes work to make the screen easier to read. 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.479 And maybe the button works fifteen percent of the time 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.320 you press it, or maybe it works eighty five percent 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.279 of the time you press it. In this type of experiment, 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.200 geno at all found that people with little control thought 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:39.960 they had more control than they did, but people with 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.920 a lot of control thought they had less controlled than 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.640 they actually did. And so the authors of this paper 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.720 argued that maybe this type of finding should cause us 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.560 to reevaluate the findings of the illusion of control experiments 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.440 so that we think of them not as evidence of 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.880 a systematic human tendency to overestimate our level of control, 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.479 but that that is just one half of a more 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:08.000 general tendency to misjudge our level of control in both directions, 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.920 So overestimating your control happens more often for outcomes that we, 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.760 to begin with, have very little or no control over. 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:15.320 Now. 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.040 I don't know how well the Geno at All study 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.800 here challenging the illusion of control framework is held up, 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:22.920 but there, from what I can tell, still seems to 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:27.080 be a pretty robust research consensus about the illusion of 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.279 control being basically real. And I guess we should just 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.520 keep in mind that it does seem to probably be real, 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.279 but maybe it's only half the picture. Now. Another thing 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.760 that comes up in this twenty eleven paper by Geno 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.360 at All is something we haven't really focused on all 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.080 that much yet. I guess we've generally acknowledged it. But 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:51.800 the idea of noting with specifics the ways that false 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.960 beliefs generated by illusions of control can have real negative consequences, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.440 like on our lives and on the world. And the 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:04.679 authors here site studies making these connections. So illusions of control, 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.760 when you think about it, could make you incorrectly imagine 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:13.120 that you are influencing other people's behavior. You know, I 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.320 think we can all remember plenty of scenarios when we 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.360 got up in our heads imagining that somebody else was 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.240 doing something or acting in a certain way because of us, 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:27.119 or in reaction to something we did. But then later 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.720 you realize like, oh, actually they were acting that you know, 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:32.160 you find you get more information, you find, oh, they 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.960 were acting that way because of something else going on 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.560 in their lives. You know, other people are living whole 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.960 lives of their own, and we often don't know what's 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.760 happening in their heads and in their lives, and so 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.080 we can have a kind of very self oriented interpretation 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.880 of other people's behavior. And one form that might take 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.560 would be or one reason that might arise is an 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:53.600 illusion of control. 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:58.920 Yeah, there's often this self centered nature of modeling out 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.720 other peace people's intents and mental states. 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.840 The authors here also note that people who overestimate their 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.200 level of control over outcomes might quote make bad decisions 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.080 about where to direct their efforts. And that totally makes sense, right. 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.280 You know, imagine you're trying to get something that you want, 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.120 and whether you get that outcome is influenced by multiple factors. 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:28.800 Maybe one factor is something that's amenable to practice and skill, 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.200 and the other factor is purely luck. If you think 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.200 that the luck based factor is within your control, you 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.880 could waste time focused on trying to manipulate that when 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.400 you should have been focused on, you know, practicing the 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.240 skill based factor, influencing what you can instead of wasting 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.600 your efforts trying to influence what you can't. Yeah, they 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.960 also note research pointing out that illusions of control could 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.280 cause you to make bad judgments about whether or not 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.480 to listen to the opinions and input of others. And 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.079 this just that totally seems true. But it also makes 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:08.160 me think about how if you generalize illusions of control 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.320 beyond the self. It seems to me that illusions of 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.320 control could potentially overlap with the just world illusion, you know, 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.760 the belief that people get what they deserve. And I'm 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.560 sure we can all think of cases where we've, you know, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.720 encountered somebody who is inclined to blame other people who 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.800 are suffering misfortune for their predicament, even if it's clearly 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.480 due to factors outside of their control. Just the mentality 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.840 that you must have done something to deserve this. You know, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.760 maybe if you had a positive attitude, this wouldn't have 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.559 happened to you, and so forth. I mean, you can 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.960 see that even in scenarios where it's logically absurd, there's 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.240 no reason to think that there would be real causal 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.320 factors of that sort, and so applying that to other 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.680 people would almost seem like a sort of universalizing or 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.760 generalizing of the principle of illusions of control. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.719 Yeah, and you can imagine in these scenarios where I mean, 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.440 there is kind of a self protective rationale in some 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.000 of these judgments. So something that is, you know, that 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.400 random outside of someone's control happens, something negative happens to 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.640 someone you know or someone like You're just aware of 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:22.800 the obvious ramification of that is that something out of 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.920 my control could happen to me, something just like this 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.440 or similar, and that puts you in that place of 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.400 not having control over your events. But if there's a 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.320 reason for it happening to this other person, then perhaps 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.400 there is a reason for it to not happen to you, 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.400 or you know, it puts something conceivably within the realm 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.760 of your control. If there is this causation you can 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.640 focus on with this other individual situation. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.920 That's a version of the thing we're talking about with 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.760 like driving that you know, we believe the auto collisions 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.080 that you somehow would be able to avoid collisions that 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.880 other people would be less able to avoid because somehow 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.840 you can exert a type of control over driving outcomes 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:04.880 that other people can't. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.920 Yeah, go to be clear, everyone can use turn signals. 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.640 I'm just saying, consider turn signals. If you haven't used 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:12.720 to turn signal today, treat yourself. 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.040 So I think it's pretty clear that having the false 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.440 belief that you can control outcomes that you actually can't 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.400 will have negative impacts on your life and on the 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.520 lives of others. There are like an infinite number of 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.720 imaginable scenarios where this type of illusion would be harmful, 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.920 which raises the question, then why do we still experience it? 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.839 Like why haven't we as creatures gotten a lot better 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.280 at seeing the difference between things we can influence and 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.719 things we can't. So to examine this question, I want 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.160 to come back to a chapter in an academic psychology 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.679 book that I brought up in the last episode. This 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.600 is a chapter called Illusions of Control written by a 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.559 psychologist named Suzanne C. Thompson. This is from a book 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.839 called Cognitive Illusions from Psychology Press twenty sixteen, edited by 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.120 Rudiger F. Pohl. So, this book chapter does an overview 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.120 of illusion of control research, the research that has taken 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.520 place since the nineteen seventies, comparing different methods of studying 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:19.400 the phenomenon and synthesizing the major findings of this subfield. 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:20.160 Now. 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.480 Later in this chapter, Thompson does cover some of the 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.760 main explanations that have been offered in the scientific literature 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.679 for why illusions of control occur. One explanation she brings 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.839 up that she ends up not agreeing with is the 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.319 explanation given in the original paper by Ellen J. Langer 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.760 from nineteen seventy five. This was the one about where 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:48.160 Langer essentially said that illusions of control happen because people 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:53.800 literally confuse chance determined outcomes with skilled determined outcomes. So 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.880 we actually mistakenly believe the slot machine is to some 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.880 extent a game of se skill, and like elements of 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.640 the skill game cause us to really think that this 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:10.000 connects to the finding that skill based elements like familiarity, involvement, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.719 and competition, which we talked about in the other episodes, 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:18.120 could actually cause people to have more illusions of control, 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.400 and Thompson brings up some reasons to doubt that Langer's 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.080 skill chance confusion explanation is the right one. The main 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.199 thing she brings up about this theory that resonates with 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.560 me is she says, you know, this theory doesn't explain 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.040 some of the secondary factors that change how much illusory 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.959 control we experience, for example, success emphasis, or the level 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.960 of need or desire for an outcome, etc. That just 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.440 doesn't really make sense if this is the reason we 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.439 have illusions of control. So instead, Thompson and her co 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.840 authors in previous research have offered an explanation for illusions 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.880 of control based on what they call a control heuristic. 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.800 And so, a heuristic generally means a process that people 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.160 use to try to quickly solve a problem or make 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:09.320 a determination, not perfectly, but efficiently. So instead of like 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.640 doing a full analysis of a situation where you really 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.559 deliberately think everything out, you can mentally use a heuristic 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.400 to come to a solution or make a determination that 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.640 is fast and good enough. So another way to think 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.120 about a heuristic is a mental shortcut. We use heuristic 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.040 reasoning all the time. Basically, anytime we're not slowing down 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.240 to do deliberate analytical thinking, we're probably using various kinds 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:35.240 of heuristics. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:37.200 Yeah, yeah, this has come up on the show a 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.360 lot because it really is quite revealing about like what 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.240 we are and how we interact with and to what 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.040 degree we're aware of our world. You know, like there's 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:51.800 just not enough like mental capacity and or energy to 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.480 do a deep analysis all the time. It's also not helpful. 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.080 You've got to move through the world. You have objectives 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.400 to get to and the brain is helping you get 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.720 there without folks getting lost in all the details. 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.520 Yeah, exactly. So Yeah, you might think, well, wouldn't it 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:07.720 be better if we tried to do a really deep 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.000 analysis on everything, But no, it would not. You don't 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.720 have time to do that like that. That's not a 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.000 way that you could live a life. You have to 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:20.280 do most mental determination fast and cheap. So in judgments 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.520 of control, Thompson says a control heuristic is quote a 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.680 shortcut that people use to judge the extent of their 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.640 personal influence. And Thompson and co authors came up with 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.240 a model of how this informal heuristic works and they 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.320 say it as two factors. There are two things that 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.680 we in theory look at to make this calculation, fast 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.520 and dirty calculation about whether we are influencing outcomes or not. 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.600 And those two ingredients are number one, your intention to 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:54.520 achieve an outcome and number two a perceived connection in 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:58.760 the world between your actions and the desired outcome. And so, 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.880 in Thompson's own word quote, when one acts with the 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:06.560 intention of obtaining a particular outcome and there is a 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:12.200 relationship temporal, common meaning, or predictive between one's action and 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.080 the outcome, people judged that they had control over the outcome. 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.160 So to connect this to a real world example, you know, 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.160 imagine you are playing a slot machine. You have the 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.320 intention of winning a bunch of money, and you play 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:28.720 it a bunch and you do have a pretty big win. 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:31.280 Maybe it's on the day when you are wearing your 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.280 lucky underwear. So according to the control heuristic model of 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.280 Thompson and co authors here, this would be a situation 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.600 likely to give rise to illusions of control because both 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.640 conditions here are met the intention you did intend to 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.560 win the money, and then the connection you did take 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.960 some action that was connected to you getting the money. 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:56.280 So it was in this case you could say wearing 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.840 the lucky clothing, but in fact you don't even really 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.360 need the lucky charm to as establish this relationship. You 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.680 could have an illusion of control simply for playing the 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.160 machine because in regular play, like you have the intention 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:12.800 to win, and then some intermittent winnings occur, and simply 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.439 the action of playing the machine could also cause illusions 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.480 that the gambler has some control over getting that outcome 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.600 of the intermittent winnings, so they believe they have some 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.000 way to beat the system and win big. So I 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.520 was thinking about even though this particular connection would be 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:31.760 an illusion when it comes to like the slot machine, 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.960 you don't really control the outcomes, the control heuristic, like 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.600 many heuristics, would still be very useful because it is 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:43.040 good enough most of the time. Most of the time, 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:47.360 it does help you accurately determine your influence over all 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.120 kinds of processes every day. So I was just thinking 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.040 about cooking. You know, you're cooking in the kitchen. Maybe 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.680 you're making the tomato basil sauce that you've cooked a 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.680 bunch of times before, and this time it came out 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.680 tasting better than it usually does. And then you connect 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:07.240 that temporally to an action that you took, like I 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.479 added more garlic than I usually do, and then you 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.240 use that to correctly determine that your actions adding the 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:19.000 extra garlic influence the desirable outcome of the food tasting good. 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.399 So you know, for situations like that, this kind of 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.280 heuristic would work just fine. It's not that the heuristic 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.000 is bad. We use it all the time, and most 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.639 of the time it's good enough. You can imagine the 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.160 alternative of like being frozen in place trying to consider, 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.480 like what role chance factors outside of your control may 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.840 also have influenced how much you liked your tomato basil sauce. 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.800 You know, it's just like not a useful scenario to 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:45.120 be in. 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:47.720 And of course the thing about tomato basil sauce is 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:51.520 you will, in theory make it again, so this process 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:56.640 of testing and learning and making these judgment calls will continue. 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.440 That's right. So you could refine your understanding in the future. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:01.479 I mean, maybe make it with more garlic again and 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.440 you don't like it, you can update your beliefs. But 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.520 in this situation, a heuristic that says, okay, I combine, 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:12.480 I intended for an outcome, I took an action and 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:16.359 that outcome occurred. That's good enough. I can say, then, okay, 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.800 I did have control. My action was what determined the outcome. 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.720 But of course there are situations in the world that 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.399 can turn this normally very well functioning heuristic against you. 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.439 Games of chance are one of them. Remember you know, 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:32.560 so you think like I have the intention of winning 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.439 the slot machine. I take the action of placing the 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.840 bets and pulling the lever. Sometimes I do get small, 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.760 intermittent payouts. Therefore I am at least partially in control. 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.280 I can beat the odds. But it's not just games 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.159 of chance. It's also everyday scenarios where the amount of 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.080 control you have over an outcome that you care about 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.480 is ambiguous. So I was trying to think of some 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.199 scenarios like this. Here's a very common one. Trying to 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:04.120 persuade people to agree with you about something a very 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.400 very common human activity. It occurs in workplaces and friendships 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.480 and families and sales. At every level of human life 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.520 there's persuasion, and so it's happening all the time. And 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.000 whether you succeed or fail at this task, you never 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.800 know exactly how much of the outcome was due to 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.920 factors within your control, like the kind of persuasive case 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.640 you made, or to other factors outside of your control, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.080 like everything else going on in this other person's life 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.280 and mind. So the level of control that you have 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:42.160 is always kind of ambiguous. You will have intermittent successes 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:46.080 and failures at persuading people of things, but it's easy 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.520 to see how illusions of control can arise here. And 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.440 maybe you can start thinking that you have more influence 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.600 over people than you actually do, because like, sometimes you're 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:57.760 going to win at this game, and you can never 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.840 really know for sure why you one, if it was 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.399 because of something you did or because of something else. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:05.960 Yeah, and I mean the reverse is true as well. 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.480 Like you often hear it's kind of like the you know, 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.800 the old thing, little pictures have big ears, right, I mean, 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.320 you might not think you're having an influence on someone 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:16.560 that someone's looking up to you or looking to you 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.640 or noticing how you're responding to something, but that influence 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:21.600 may be in place, So it kind of goes both 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:22.560 ways totally. 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.600 Yeah. I mean, in fact, that could be the other 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:26.720 side of that geno at all study, right that, And 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.280 sometimes we have a lot of influence and we underestimate 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:31.520 the amount we have. Yeah. 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:42.119 Yeah. 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.119 But another kind of extremely common human scenario where the 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:50.000 feedback is ambiguous would be health outcomes. You know, we 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.280 do this all the time. It's like I feel some 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.680 kind of pain or discomfort in my body. I want 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.360 to feel better. Maybe I do something like I take 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:01.360 some kind of me acation, or I do some kind 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:06.520 of exercise, and then sometime soon after I do that something, 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:10.000 whatever it is, I feel better. Therefore, I'm kind of 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:14.320 inclined to conclude that whatever it was I did created 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.680 the outcome of me feeling better. And maybe it did 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.639 or maybe it didn't. Like without clear evidence, the kind 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.760 of clear evidence that we have from like a randomized 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.560 controlled trial, it's hard to know whether the intervention is 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.240 what did it or whether you simply started to feel 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.919 better anyway due to regression to the mean. But you know, 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.200 according to the control heuristic, you would like you would 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.360 have a hit on whatever that intervention was, and then 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.320 therefore it would feel like whatever you did was the 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:46.040 decisive factor. You were the controlling factor there. 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:48.880 Yeah, I mean, and even when you're aware of this, 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:50.879 you can you're kind of left sometimes. I mean, I 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:52.920 speak from my own experience here in a situation where 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:56.240 you're like, well, okay, my doctor said to try taking 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.639