Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part
Speaker 3: three in our series on the psychology concept known as
Speaker 3: the illusion of control. This is a cognitive illusion, meaning
Speaker 3: a common type of error in thinking and judgment that
Speaker 3: has been studied fairly intensively going back to about the
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies. So, according to most of the illusion of
Speaker 3: control literature, humans on average have a tendency too believe
Speaker 3: we have some level of control over outcomes that are
Speaker 3: completely outside of our influence, such as the outcome of
Speaker 3: a lottery and other games of chance. And in situations
Speaker 3: where we do have some control but not to control,
Speaker 3: we on average believe that we have more control than
Speaker 3: we do, according to illusion of control theory. Now, if
Speaker 3: you haven't heard the other two episodes already, you should
Speaker 3: probably go back and listen to them first. They'll help
Speaker 3: bring you up to speed for today. But we'll do
Speaker 3: a brief recap on what we talked about the last
Speaker 3: couple of times. First of all, just to illustrate the
Speaker 3: idea of illution of control, we talked about ways that
Speaker 3: you might see people expressing or illustrating their illusions of
Speaker 3: control in everyday life, such as the way we concentrate
Speaker 3: on a dice throw as if this will increase our
Speaker 3: chances of hitting the number we want, or maybe pressing
Speaker 3: the door close button on an elevator after somebody else
Speaker 3: has already pushed it. Questionable whether the first press actually
Speaker 3: does anything. The second one's just ridiculous, you know, But
Speaker 3: sometimes we just feel that way. We're in a hurry,
Speaker 3: and we feel like this other guy, he couldn't make
Speaker 3: it happen, couldn't close the doors, but I can.
Speaker 2: That's right. I mean these two exams alone, along with
Speaker 2: the walk button at crosswalks, I think we can all
Speaker 2: relate to these on one level or another.
Speaker 3: But another one that's been observed in research is when
Speaker 3: driving a car, thinking that you will somehow be able
Speaker 3: to avoid an auto collision by exerting some vague type
Speaker 3: of control that other drivers are not capable of.
Speaker 2: I mean, I often think that other drivers are incapable
Speaker 2: of a lot when I'm observing their driving. But we're
Speaker 2: talking about very specific things here, or we're getting into
Speaker 2: that realm of control that goes above and beyond just
Speaker 2: being able to drive your car safely and correctly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's true I feel the same way
Speaker 3: when driving, and yet at the same time, for everybody
Speaker 3: else in the world, I am one of the other drivers.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. I see a lot of
Speaker 2: not using turn signals, et cetera out there. Some people
Speaker 2: seem in capable of that. But this need not be
Speaker 2: a time rate about other people's driving.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: In part two of the series, we talked about a
Speaker 3: bunch of different types of experiments that have found various
Speaker 3: sorts of evidence for the illusion of control, and we
Speaker 3: also talked about factors that tend to influence how much
Speaker 3: illusory control we experience. Just a few examples that came
Speaker 3: up last time. One is mood. We apparently experience more
Speaker 3: illusory control on average when we're in a positive mood.
Speaker 3: The salience of success or what's called success emphasis. So
Speaker 3: we tend to experience more illusory control when we have
Speaker 3: a string of early successful outcomes getting what we want.
Speaker 3: So maybe if you're doing a coin flip a bunch
Speaker 3: of times and the coin flip comes up your way
Speaker 3: several times in a row, might start to make you
Speaker 3: feel like somehow you're making that happen. Another factor was
Speaker 3: the need or desire for the outcome. So the more
Speaker 3: you want an outcome, the more likely you are to
Speaker 3: overestimate your control over it happening. One example of experiments
Speaker 3: that showed this was like if the prize of a
Speaker 3: lottery is a sandwich. On average, hungry people are more
Speaker 3: likely to show illusions of control over the lottery than
Speaker 3: people who just stayed, who might have a more realistic
Speaker 3: idea of their chances. Another interesting one was power. Positions
Speaker 3: of power or feelings of power are somewhat correlated with
Speaker 3: illusory control, so maybe having more actual control over real
Speaker 3: things could also bring about more illusions that you can
Speaker 3: control things you can't. And another interesting factor was the
Speaker 3: intrusion of reality. So the illusion of control is fortunately
Speaker 3: one of the illusions that has been found to be
Speaker 3: fairly well neutralized or mitigated by giving somebody a reality check,
Speaker 3: you like, remind them in the moment what the odds
Speaker 3: on the slot machine actually are, and that seems to
Speaker 3: somewhat reduce a person's belief that they can somehow get
Speaker 3: better odds through their behavior. Now, also in the previous
Speaker 3: episode we talked about in interesting paper I found by
Speaker 3: Geno at All from twenty eleven somewhat challenging the illusion
Speaker 3: of control framework by doing experiments showing that illusions of
Speaker 3: control can go in both directions. So, for example, there's
Speaker 3: a task where you're trying to solve puzzles on a
Speaker 3: computer screen, and there's a button you can press that
Speaker 3: will sometimes work to make the screen easier to read.
Speaker 3: And maybe the button works fifteen percent of the time
Speaker 3: you press it, or maybe it works eighty five percent
Speaker 3: of the time you press it. In this type of experiment,
Speaker 3: geno at all found that people with little control thought
Speaker 3: they had more control than they did, but people with
Speaker 3: a lot of control thought they had less controlled than
Speaker 3: they actually did. And so the authors of this paper
Speaker 3: argued that maybe this type of finding should cause us
Speaker 3: to reevaluate the findings of the illusion of control experiments
Speaker 3: so that we think of them not as evidence of
Speaker 3: a systematic human tendency to overestimate our level of control,
Speaker 3: but that that is just one half of a more
Speaker 3: general tendency to misjudge our level of control in both directions,
Speaker 3: So overestimating your control happens more often for outcomes that we,
Speaker 3: to begin with, have very little or no control over.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't know how well the Geno at All study
Speaker 3: here challenging the illusion of control framework is held up,
Speaker 3: but there, from what I can tell, still seems to
Speaker 3: be a pretty robust research consensus about the illusion of
Speaker 3: control being basically real. And I guess we should just
Speaker 3: keep in mind that it does seem to probably be real,
Speaker 3: but maybe it's only half the picture. Now. Another thing
Speaker 3: that comes up in this twenty eleven paper by Geno
Speaker 3: at All is something we haven't really focused on all
Speaker 3: that much yet. I guess we've generally acknowledged it. But
Speaker 3: the idea of noting with specifics the ways that false
Speaker 3: beliefs generated by illusions of control can have real negative consequences,
Speaker 3: like on our lives and on the world. And the
Speaker 3: authors here site studies making these connections. So illusions of control,
Speaker 3: when you think about it, could make you incorrectly imagine
Speaker 3: that you are influencing other people's behavior. You know, I
Speaker 3: think we can all remember plenty of scenarios when we
Speaker 3: got up in our heads imagining that somebody else was
Speaker 3: doing something or acting in a certain way because of us,
Speaker 3: or in reaction to something we did. But then later
Speaker 3: you realize like, oh, actually they were acting that you know,
Speaker 3: you find you get more information, you find, oh, they
Speaker 3: were acting that way because of something else going on
Speaker 3: in their lives. You know, other people are living whole
Speaker 3: lives of their own, and we often don't know what's
Speaker 3: happening in their heads and in their lives, and so
Speaker 3: we can have a kind of very self oriented interpretation
Speaker 3: of other people's behavior. And one form that might take
Speaker 3: would be or one reason that might arise is an
Speaker 3: illusion of control.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's often this self centered nature of modeling out
Speaker 2: other peace people's intents and mental states.
Speaker 3: The authors here also note that people who overestimate their
Speaker 3: level of control over outcomes might quote make bad decisions
Speaker 3: about where to direct their efforts. And that totally makes sense, right.
Speaker 3: You know, imagine you're trying to get something that you want,
Speaker 3: and whether you get that outcome is influenced by multiple factors.
Speaker 3: Maybe one factor is something that's amenable to practice and skill,
Speaker 3: and the other factor is purely luck. If you think
Speaker 3: that the luck based factor is within your control, you
Speaker 3: could waste time focused on trying to manipulate that when
Speaker 3: you should have been focused on, you know, practicing the
Speaker 3: skill based factor, influencing what you can instead of wasting
Speaker 3: your efforts trying to influence what you can't. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: also note research pointing out that illusions of control could
Speaker 3: cause you to make bad judgments about whether or not
Speaker 3: to listen to the opinions and input of others. And
Speaker 3: this just that totally seems true. But it also makes
Speaker 3: me think about how if you generalize illusions of control
Speaker 3: beyond the self. It seems to me that illusions of
Speaker 3: control could potentially overlap with the just world illusion, you know,
Speaker 3: the belief that people get what they deserve. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure we can all think of cases where we've, you know,
Speaker 3: encountered somebody who is inclined to blame other people who
Speaker 3: are suffering misfortune for their predicament, even if it's clearly
Speaker 3: due to factors outside of their control. Just the mentality
Speaker 3: that you must have done something to deserve this. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe if you had a positive attitude, this wouldn't have
Speaker 3: happened to you, and so forth. I mean, you can
Speaker 3: see that even in scenarios where it's logically absurd, there's
Speaker 3: no reason to think that there would be real causal
Speaker 3: factors of that sort, and so applying that to other
Speaker 3: people would almost seem like a sort of universalizing or
Speaker 3: generalizing of the principle of illusions of control.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can imagine in these scenarios where I mean,
Speaker 2: there is kind of a self protective rationale in some
Speaker 2: of these judgments. So something that is, you know, that
Speaker 2: random outside of someone's control happens, something negative happens to
Speaker 2: someone you know or someone like You're just aware of
Speaker 2: the obvious ramification of that is that something out of
Speaker 2: my control could happen to me, something just like this
Speaker 2: or similar, and that puts you in that place of
Speaker 2: not having control over your events. But if there's a
Speaker 2: reason for it happening to this other person, then perhaps
Speaker 2: there is a reason for it to not happen to you,
Speaker 2: or you know, it puts something conceivably within the realm
Speaker 2: of your control. If there is this causation you can
Speaker 2: focus on with this other individual situation.
Speaker 3: That's a version of the thing we're talking about with
Speaker 3: like driving that you know, we believe the auto collisions
Speaker 3: that you somehow would be able to avoid collisions that
Speaker 3: other people would be less able to avoid because somehow
Speaker 3: you can exert a type of control over driving outcomes
Speaker 3: that other people can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go to be clear, everyone can use turn signals.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, consider turn signals. If you haven't used
Speaker 2: to turn signal today, treat yourself.
Speaker 3: So I think it's pretty clear that having the false
Speaker 3: belief that you can control outcomes that you actually can't
Speaker 3: will have negative impacts on your life and on the
Speaker 3: lives of others. There are like an infinite number of
Speaker 3: imaginable scenarios where this type of illusion would be harmful,
Speaker 3: which raises the question, then why do we still experience it?
Speaker 3: Like why haven't we as creatures gotten a lot better
Speaker 3: at seeing the difference between things we can influence and
Speaker 3: things we can't. So to examine this question, I want
Speaker 3: to come back to a chapter in an academic psychology
Speaker 3: book that I brought up in the last episode. This
Speaker 3: is a chapter called Illusions of Control written by a
Speaker 3: psychologist named Suzanne C. Thompson. This is from a book
Speaker 3: called Cognitive Illusions from Psychology Press twenty sixteen, edited by
Speaker 3: Rudiger F. Pohl. So, this book chapter does an overview
Speaker 3: of illusion of control research, the research that has taken
Speaker 3: place since the nineteen seventies, comparing different methods of studying
Speaker 3: the phenomenon and synthesizing the major findings of this subfield.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Later in this chapter, Thompson does cover some of the
Speaker 3: main explanations that have been offered in the scientific literature
Speaker 3: for why illusions of control occur. One explanation she brings
Speaker 3: up that she ends up not agreeing with is the
Speaker 3: explanation given in the original paper by Ellen J. Langer
Speaker 3: from nineteen seventy five. This was the one about where
Speaker 3: Langer essentially said that illusions of control happen because people
Speaker 3: literally confuse chance determined outcomes with skilled determined outcomes. So
Speaker 3: we actually mistakenly believe the slot machine is to some
Speaker 3: extent a game of se skill, and like elements of
Speaker 3: the skill game cause us to really think that this
Speaker 3: connects to the finding that skill based elements like familiarity, involvement,
Speaker 3: and competition, which we talked about in the other episodes,
Speaker 3: could actually cause people to have more illusions of control,
Speaker 3: and Thompson brings up some reasons to doubt that Langer's
Speaker 3: skill chance confusion explanation is the right one. The main
Speaker 3: thing she brings up about this theory that resonates with
Speaker 3: me is she says, you know, this theory doesn't explain
Speaker 3: some of the secondary factors that change how much illusory
Speaker 3: control we experience, for example, success emphasis, or the level
Speaker 3: of need or desire for an outcome, etc. That just
Speaker 3: doesn't really make sense if this is the reason we
Speaker 3: have illusions of control. So instead, Thompson and her co
Speaker 3: authors in previous research have offered an explanation for illusions
Speaker 3: of control based on what they call a control heuristic.
Speaker 3: And so, a heuristic generally means a process that people
Speaker 3: use to try to quickly solve a problem or make
Speaker 3: a determination, not perfectly, but efficiently. So instead of like
Speaker 3: doing a full analysis of a situation where you really
Speaker 3: deliberately think everything out, you can mentally use a heuristic
Speaker 3: to come to a solution or make a determination that
Speaker 3: is fast and good enough. So another way to think
Speaker 3: about a heuristic is a mental shortcut. We use heuristic
Speaker 3: reasoning all the time. Basically, anytime we're not slowing down
Speaker 3: to do deliberate analytical thinking, we're probably using various kinds
Speaker 3: of heuristics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this has come up on the show a
Speaker 2: lot because it really is quite revealing about like what
Speaker 2: we are and how we interact with and to what
Speaker 2: degree we're aware of our world. You know, like there's
Speaker 2: just not enough like mental capacity and or energy to
Speaker 2: do a deep analysis all the time. It's also not helpful.
Speaker 2: You've got to move through the world. You have objectives
Speaker 2: to get to and the brain is helping you get
Speaker 2: there without folks getting lost in all the details.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So Yeah, you might think, well, wouldn't it
Speaker 3: be better if we tried to do a really deep
Speaker 3: analysis on everything, But no, it would not. You don't
Speaker 3: have time to do that like that. That's not a
Speaker 3: way that you could live a life. You have to
Speaker 3: do most mental determination fast and cheap. So in judgments
Speaker 3: of control, Thompson says a control heuristic is quote a
Speaker 3: shortcut that people use to judge the extent of their
Speaker 3: personal influence. And Thompson and co authors came up with
Speaker 3: a model of how this informal heuristic works and they
Speaker 3: say it as two factors. There are two things that
Speaker 3: we in theory look at to make this calculation, fast
Speaker 3: and dirty calculation about whether we are influencing outcomes or not.
Speaker 3: And those two ingredients are number one, your intention to
Speaker 3: achieve an outcome and number two a perceived connection in
Speaker 3: the world between your actions and the desired outcome. And so,
Speaker 3: in Thompson's own word quote, when one acts with the
Speaker 3: intention of obtaining a particular outcome and there is a
Speaker 3: relationship temporal, common meaning, or predictive between one's action and
Speaker 3: the outcome, people judged that they had control over the outcome.
Speaker 3: So to connect this to a real world example, you know,
Speaker 3: imagine you are playing a slot machine. You have the
Speaker 3: intention of winning a bunch of money, and you play
Speaker 3: it a bunch and you do have a pretty big win.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's on the day when you are wearing your
Speaker 3: lucky underwear. So according to the control heuristic model of
Speaker 3: Thompson and co authors here, this would be a situation
Speaker 3: likely to give rise to illusions of control because both
Speaker 3: conditions here are met the intention you did intend to
Speaker 3: win the money, and then the connection you did take
Speaker 3: some action that was connected to you getting the money.
Speaker 3: So it was in this case you could say wearing
Speaker 3: the lucky clothing, but in fact you don't even really
Speaker 3: need the lucky charm to as establish this relationship. You
Speaker 3: could have an illusion of control simply for playing the
Speaker 3: machine because in regular play, like you have the intention
Speaker 3: to win, and then some intermittent winnings occur, and simply
Speaker 3: the action of playing the machine could also cause illusions
Speaker 3: that the gambler has some control over getting that outcome
Speaker 3: of the intermittent winnings, so they believe they have some
Speaker 3: way to beat the system and win big. So I
Speaker 3: was thinking about even though this particular connection would be
Speaker 3: an illusion when it comes to like the slot machine,
Speaker 3: you don't really control the outcomes, the control heuristic, like
Speaker 3: many heuristics, would still be very useful because it is
Speaker 3: good enough most of the time. Most of the time,
Speaker 3: it does help you accurately determine your influence over all
Speaker 3: kinds of processes every day. So I was just thinking
Speaker 3: about cooking. You know, you're cooking in the kitchen. Maybe
Speaker 3: you're making the tomato basil sauce that you've cooked a
Speaker 3: bunch of times before, and this time it came out
Speaker 3: tasting better than it usually does. And then you connect
Speaker 3: that temporally to an action that you took, like I
Speaker 3: added more garlic than I usually do, and then you
Speaker 3: use that to correctly determine that your actions adding the
Speaker 3: extra garlic influence the desirable outcome of the food tasting good.
Speaker 3: So you know, for situations like that, this kind of
Speaker 3: heuristic would work just fine. It's not that the heuristic
Speaker 3: is bad. We use it all the time, and most
Speaker 3: of the time it's good enough. You can imagine the
Speaker 3: alternative of like being frozen in place trying to consider,
Speaker 3: like what role chance factors outside of your control may
Speaker 3: also have influenced how much you liked your tomato basil sauce.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just like not a useful scenario to
Speaker 3: be in.
Speaker 2: And of course the thing about tomato basil sauce is
Speaker 2: you will, in theory make it again, so this process
Speaker 2: of testing and learning and making these judgment calls will continue.
Speaker 3: That's right. So you could refine your understanding in the future.
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe make it with more garlic again and
Speaker 3: you don't like it, you can update your beliefs. But
Speaker 3: in this situation, a heuristic that says, okay, I combine,
Speaker 3: I intended for an outcome, I took an action and
Speaker 3: that outcome occurred. That's good enough. I can say, then, okay,
Speaker 3: I did have control. My action was what determined the outcome.
Speaker 3: But of course there are situations in the world that
Speaker 3: can turn this normally very well functioning heuristic against you.
Speaker 3: Games of chance are one of them. Remember you know,
Speaker 3: so you think like I have the intention of winning
Speaker 3: the slot machine. I take the action of placing the
Speaker 3: bets and pulling the lever. Sometimes I do get small,
Speaker 3: intermittent payouts. Therefore I am at least partially in control.
Speaker 3: I can beat the odds. But it's not just games
Speaker 3: of chance. It's also everyday scenarios where the amount of
Speaker 3: control you have over an outcome that you care about
Speaker 3: is ambiguous. So I was trying to think of some
Speaker 3: scenarios like this. Here's a very common one. Trying to
Speaker 3: persuade people to agree with you about something a very
Speaker 3: very common human activity. It occurs in workplaces and friendships
Speaker 3: and families and sales. At every level of human life
Speaker 3: there's persuasion, and so it's happening all the time. And
Speaker 3: whether you succeed or fail at this task, you never
Speaker 3: know exactly how much of the outcome was due to
Speaker 3: factors within your control, like the kind of persuasive case
Speaker 3: you made, or to other factors outside of your control,
Speaker 3: like everything else going on in this other person's life
Speaker 3: and mind. So the level of control that you have
Speaker 3: is always kind of ambiguous. You will have intermittent successes
Speaker 3: and failures at persuading people of things, but it's easy
Speaker 3: to see how illusions of control can arise here. And
Speaker 3: maybe you can start thinking that you have more influence
Speaker 3: over people than you actually do, because like, sometimes you're
Speaker 3: going to win at this game, and you can never
Speaker 3: really know for sure why you one, if it was
Speaker 3: because of something you did or because of something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean the reverse is true as well.
Speaker 2: Like you often hear it's kind of like the you know,
Speaker 2: the old thing, little pictures have big ears, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: you might not think you're having an influence on someone
Speaker 2: that someone's looking up to you or looking to you
Speaker 2: or noticing how you're responding to something, but that influence
Speaker 2: may be in place, So it kind of goes both
Speaker 2: ways totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, in fact, that could be the other
Speaker 3: side of that geno at all study, right that, And
Speaker 3: sometimes we have a lot of influence and we underestimate
Speaker 3: the amount we have. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But another kind of extremely common human scenario where the
Speaker 3: feedback is ambiguous would be health outcomes. You know, we
Speaker 3: do this all the time. It's like I feel some
Speaker 3: kind of pain or discomfort in my body. I want
Speaker 3: to feel better. Maybe I do something like I take
Speaker 3: some kind of me acation, or I do some kind
Speaker 3: of exercise, and then sometime soon after I do that something,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, I feel better. Therefore, I'm kind of
Speaker 3: inclined to conclude that whatever it was I did created
Speaker 3: the outcome of me feeling better. And maybe it did
Speaker 3: or maybe it didn't. Like without clear evidence, the kind
Speaker 3: of clear evidence that we have from like a randomized
Speaker 3: controlled trial, it's hard to know whether the intervention is
Speaker 3: what did it or whether you simply started to feel
Speaker 3: better anyway due to regression to the mean. But you know,
Speaker 3: according to the control heuristic, you would like you would
Speaker 3: have a hit on whatever that intervention was, and then
Speaker 3: therefore it would feel like whatever you did was the
Speaker 3: decisive factor. You were the controlling factor there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and even when you're aware of this,
Speaker 2: you can you're kind of left sometimes. I mean, I
Speaker 2: speak from my own experience here in a situation where
Speaker 2: you're like, well, okay, my doctor said to try taking
Speaker 2: the supplement, and I did, and then I got to
Speaker 2: feeling better. But I could have just that could have
Speaker 2: just been at the point at which my body was
Speaker 2: healing back up again. You know, it's like there might
Speaker 2: not be a connection there, but maybe I just keep
Speaker 2: taking them because it you know, like it kind of
Speaker 2: comes back to, you know, the reduced cost of keeping
Speaker 2: an ambulant in your pocket. You know, it's not inconvenience me,
Speaker 2: inconveniencing me to do this, So I guess I'll keep
Speaker 2: doing it just in case there was some line up
Speaker 2: between these two things.
Speaker 3: Sure, and you never know. So if the feedback is ambiguous,
Speaker 3: maybe it is doing something. And if it's not like
Speaker 3: super costly or hurting you in some other way, why
Speaker 3: not do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it can be frustrating that a lot
Speaker 2: of things in life end up being like this for sure.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I think this control heuristic model makes a
Speaker 3: lot of sense. I don't think we can say for
Speaker 3: sure that this is the best explanation for why we
Speaker 3: experience evolutions of control, but it seems like a good
Speaker 3: candidate to me. It seems at least to have a
Speaker 3: pretty to work as a pretty strong working hypothesis. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and us to the next question addressed in Thompson's chapter,
Speaker 3: which connects to something we've we've brought up in both
Speaker 3: directions now, which is what are the implications of illusions
Speaker 3: of control in our lives? Like how do these illusions
Speaker 3: affect us? And do they do they ultimately help us
Speaker 3: more or hurt us more?
Speaker 2: Because I think a lot of us here that we'd illusion,
Speaker 2: and we think of illusion as unreality, and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe we don't like the idea that we're just wandering
Speaker 2: about in our daily lives confronted by illusions. But of
Speaker 2: course there's a lot to our perception of reality that
Speaker 2: is illusory, you know, as we've discussed many times in
Speaker 2: the show before. So just because as an illusion doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily mean it's bad, but also illusions can be disruptive
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: Right, So I just think it's worth looking at ways
Speaker 3: in which illusions of control can be both bad and good.
Speaker 3: And spoiler alert, it seems that the evidence is that
Speaker 3: they are both. They both help us and hurt us.
Speaker 3: So on the pot positive side. One thing that Thompson
Speaker 3: talks about is, you know, the idea that human beings
Speaker 3: are clearly motivated to believe that we have agency over
Speaker 3: outcomes in our lives, and research has found that in general,
Speaker 3: belief in quote control and a sense of self efficacy
Speaker 3: the fact that you have agency over your life, you
Speaker 3: can take actions and they do have an effect. That
Speaker 3: those things are correlated with desirable outcomes like better coping
Speaker 3: with stress, better performance on tasks, and some health related outcomes.
Speaker 3: Sometimes health has been shown to benefit from these feelings.
Speaker 3: So it seems that in multiple ways, it is good
Speaker 3: for us to believe that we have the ability to
Speaker 3: affect what happens in our lives. And you can see how.
Speaker 3: Of course, in one sense that would be good, because
Speaker 3: it is actually good to have control over your own
Speaker 3: life to a certain extent, you know, so like it
Speaker 3: is good to in reality be in control over your fate.
Speaker 3: But would the belief in self efficacy itself be beneficial
Speaker 3: even if it weren't always true, And it seems there
Speaker 3: is some research indicating the answer to this, at least
Speaker 3: in some ways is yes. So there are some findings
Speaker 3: that show that a tendency toward illusions of control might
Speaker 3: help us avoid discouragement when pursuing a goal. So the
Speaker 3: illusion of control could help inculcate a sense of persistence
Speaker 3: in goal attainment behavior, especially when facing difficult conditions or setbacks,
Speaker 3: and also illusory control seems to help in mitigating disappointment
Speaker 3: leading to negative mood. It possibly is even protective to
Speaker 3: some degree against depression. So to the extent that it
Speaker 3: is able to provide sort of like mood regulation and
Speaker 3: help maintain motivation and protect against depression, that seems like
Speaker 3: that would have very clear benefits on well being. Yeah,
Speaker 3: another thing that's interesting is we talked in the last
Speaker 3: episode about research finding an association between illusory control and
Speaker 3: personal power. But the kind of interesting thing is that
Speaker 3: that causation could go either way or both ways. So
Speaker 3: it could be that positions of power cause people to
Speaker 3: have more illusions of control. But it could also be
Speaker 3: that illusions of control tend to increase the likelihood that
Speaker 3: somebody ends up in a position of power. So it
Speaker 3: could literally lead to you being essentially better able to
Speaker 3: attain goals, or I don't know, maybe having other people
Speaker 3: view you more positively and wanting to promote you in
Speaker 3: some way or empower you in some way. So I
Speaker 3: don't know. When you combine all this together, it looks
Speaker 3: like there's pretty good reason to think that illusions of
Speaker 3: control help maintain positive emotions and can help a person
Speaker 3: maintain a sort of confidence or action orientation, essentially the
Speaker 3: motivation to keep actively doing things to try to achieve
Speaker 3: your goals. But it's not all flowers and butterflies. We
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier that list of negative consequences that have been
Speaker 3: found to flow from illusions of control, and Thompson mentions
Speaker 3: a bunch of negative consequences as well. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to get into all of them here because there's some
Speaker 3: overlap with what we've already talked about and so forth,
Speaker 3: but just briefly, a couple of things. One is, remember
Speaker 3: the study we talked about last time from McKenna from
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety three, which found the tendency to believe that
Speaker 3: you would be able to exert more control than other
Speaker 3: drivers on the road. Subsequent research by Schlehofer from twenty ten.
Speaker 3: Schlehofer and co authors from twenty ten found that people
Speaker 3: who show greater illusions of control about driving were also
Speaker 3: more likely to drive while trying to use a cell
Speaker 3: phone simultaneously in reality, and you can kind of see
Speaker 3: how that would extend from the belief that you have
Speaker 3: more control over chance based outcomes than other people do.
Speaker 3: But it Actually, in this case, lea leads to a
Speaker 3: behavior that compromises your control, you know, it compromises your
Speaker 3: driving ability and makes a fatal crash more likely. And
Speaker 3: there are apparently a lot of examples like this where
Speaker 3: people who exhibit greater illusions of control, which might not
Speaker 3: necessarily be a you know, like a stable feature of
Speaker 3: a person's personality across their whole life. It could also
Speaker 3: be situational. But in situations where people show greater illusions
Speaker 3: of control, it has been linked to taking fewer protective
Speaker 3: measures against diseases, to making worse decisions as financial traders,
Speaker 3: and to engaging in problem gambling behaviors. In fact, there
Speaker 3: was one thing in particular in this part of the
Speaker 3: chapter Thompson brought up that I thought was an interesting finding.
Speaker 3: So this was from a paper by Cowley at all
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, and it found that there was a
Speaker 3: difference in how high illusory control gamblers would review a
Speaker 3: gambling session after it was over versus people who had
Speaker 3: low illusory control. So you have gamblers, they go out,
Speaker 3: they gamble a bunch and then they lose a bunch
Speaker 3: of money, and then they are asked to reflect back
Speaker 3: on the gaming session. Apparently, high illusory control gamblers would
Speaker 3: focus on their highest individual win within the session, whereas
Speaker 3: low illusory control gamblers would have a more total view
Speaker 3: of the session and note like their the final outcome,
Speaker 3: like what were their winnings or losings at the end
Speaker 3: of it. And so I thought that was really interesting. So,
Speaker 3: if you're in a condition where you're especially prone to
Speaker 3: illusions of control about gambling, apparently the salient piece of
Speaker 3: information to you about the whole session was like your
Speaker 3: best hand of the night, your best payout at the
Speaker 3: slot machine, in a single moment, and maybe even though
Speaker 3: you lost everything overall, the important thing to remember was
Speaker 3: that moment when everything was looking really good.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of twisted, right, because it's in it
Speaker 2: to a sense, it's looking on the sunny side of life, right,
Speaker 2: It's being an optimist. It's looking back on your experiences
Speaker 2: and not focusing on the negatives but focusing on the positives.
Speaker 2: But and that's great. I mean that to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: that's what you should do. But also you want to
Speaker 2: be able to correctly learn from your mistakes and do
Speaker 2: an accurate postop on things that you've done in life.
Speaker 3: That's a great point that this is an instinct that
Speaker 3: in other context is a very positive one. Like if
Speaker 3: you can, you know, if you had you know, you
Speaker 3: had a rough day or something, if you can like
Speaker 3: step back and focus on the best thing that happened
Speaker 3: all day, well, you know, that's wonderful. That's like a
Speaker 3: great thing to be able to do, unless that's like
Speaker 3: guiding you in how you should invest your money in
Speaker 3: the future or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting that, like the main case we're talking
Speaker 2: about here gambling, especially with you know, slot machines and whatnot,
Speaker 2: but just sort of gambling in general. It's basically it's
Speaker 2: an artific scenario that lines up with a lot of
Speaker 2: real life survival experiences that are a part of our
Speaker 2: heritage and a part of our evolutionary development. You know.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's competition for resources and so forth,
Speaker 2: the use of skill, or at least a perception of
Speaker 2: the use of skill in those pursuits. But the world
Speaker 2: of gambling, the world of games in general, like even
Speaker 2: if you're not playing for stakes, it is an artificial
Speaker 2: construct that involves a lot of those survival activities.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, and in fact interesting thing Thompson brings
Speaker 3: up in this chapter. She highlights how the gambling industry
Speaker 3: directly exploits known illusion of control triggers to pull you
Speaker 3: in that like slot machines, it's almost like they were
Speaker 3: designed by somebody who read a book chapter on the
Speaker 3: illusion of control, and they were doing a checklist like okay, familiarity, involvement, success, emphasis,
Speaker 3: They really like quite fiendishly like hit on all of
Speaker 3: the things that seem to elicit higher illusions of control.
Speaker 3: Another interesting thing about illusion of control and gambling brought
Speaker 3: up in this chapter is a neuroimaging study. This was
Speaker 3: research done by hudgens Haney at All in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: They're studying real time brain activity of people who had
Speaker 3: gambling problems versus non problem gamblers when playing games that
Speaker 3: have some level of control like poker, versus games that
Speaker 3: are purely chance based like roulette. And the interesting finding
Speaker 3: was that, Okay, you take people who don't have a
Speaker 3: history of gambling problems, they show a very different level
Speaker 3: of neural engagement in skill games versus chance games. So
Speaker 3: you put them in a game of skill, they're going
Speaker 3: to be very engaged. You put them in a game
Speaker 3: of chance, and they will show less activity in the
Speaker 3: visual and prefrontal cortex than they did in the skill game.
Speaker 3: People who have a history of gambling problems did not
Speaker 3: exhibit this same difference, so for them that in chance
Speaker 3: games the visual and prefrontal cortex was fully engaged as
Speaker 3: it was in skill games. Which, you know, it's hard
Speaker 3: to know exactly how to interpret that, but so at
Speaker 3: least one possible way of thinking about that is that
Speaker 3: is that when you have high illusions of control, you
Speaker 3: are looking at a chance based game as if there's
Speaker 3: like some way that you can engage to do better
Speaker 3: at it. You're still scanning the table for advantages, but
Speaker 3: you know, actually, if it's like roulette, there's nothing you
Speaker 3: can do. Now. One good thing that Thompson mentions is
Speaker 3: that there's some evidence that problem gamblers illusions of control
Speaker 3: can be mitigated by interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy, and
Speaker 3: like we talked about last time, at least in some situations,
Speaker 3: studies have found that illusions of control seem to be
Speaker 3: well mitigated by a basic reality check.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and there are a lot of
Speaker 2: different versions of this, but yeah, like with certain anxieties,
Speaker 2: issues for example, they're you can be taught to like
Speaker 2: put your thoughts on trial. I've heard it referred to
Speaker 2: as such, you know, where you're you're taking something that
Speaker 2: is just like a almost kind of an ambient thought
Speaker 2: or way of thinking in your mind, maybe not even
Speaker 2: expressed verbally or otherwise, but take a moment to collect
Speaker 2: the thought and then properly analyze it and saying is
Speaker 2: this likely? Is this reasonable? And so forth? And yeah,
Speaker 2: and it you know, it can it can work very
Speaker 2: well with anxiety to you know, within you know limits,
Speaker 2: And then it makes sense that it would work in
Speaker 2: these contexts as well, you know, like Okay, let's let's
Speaker 2: take this impulse, let's slow it down, and let's actually
Speaker 2: let's look at it from both sides here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. So I don't know,
Speaker 3: I think this is this is interesting that the illusion
Speaker 3: of control is something that is fundamentally objectively an illusion,
Speaker 3: an illusion like it does generate misperceptions and false beliefs,
Speaker 3: incorrect judgments, but to some degree it does have a
Speaker 3: positive side. It seems illusions of control probably do help
Speaker 3: improve mood and probably do help us persist in attaining
Speaker 3: difficult goals. Maintain you know, motivation and action orientation while
Speaker 3: we're trying to implement making positive changes in our lives
Speaker 3: and so forth. But then again, on the negative side, it,
Speaker 3: of course, false beliefs can lead to all kinds of
Speaker 3: problems and negative outcomes in the world, poor choices about
Speaker 3: how to invest our time and efforts, and in the
Speaker 3: worst cases can lead to dangerous and destructive behaviors. So
Speaker 3: it's a complex phenomenon that affects our lives in both directions.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Now, given all that we've discussed regarding the illusion of control,
Speaker 2: you know, it should come as no surprise that some
Speaker 2: have linked the concept to magical thinking in general, to
Speaker 2: belief in the pairing normal, because you know, what is
Speaker 2: the gap between some level of belief and say the
Speaker 2: power of prayer, holy amulets, lucky objects, lucky traditions, and
Speaker 2: some level of belief and say personal psychic ability or
Speaker 2: other paranormal concepts. You know, I would even argue that
Speaker 2: there's there's there's more than a little bit of crossover
Speaker 2: between these things, in part based on my own experiences,
Speaker 2: my own observations of my of how I approach certain situations.
Speaker 2: HU take bowling, for example, Oh boy, So bowling, great game,
Speaker 2: great fun. I maybe play it two or three times
Speaker 2: per year. I don't know about you, Joe.
Speaker 3: I have not bold in quite some time, but I
Speaker 3: would love to. I enjoyed bowling a lot when I
Speaker 3: was a kid. It was like one of my I
Speaker 3: never did it all that much, but I feel like
Speaker 3: on those rare occasions when it was like, what would
Speaker 3: you really like to do today? Would I would request bowling?
Speaker 3: But of course with the bumpers, please.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those bumpers can definitely help. Now, one of the
Speaker 2: interesting things about bowling is that, unlike a lot of
Speaker 2: the examples we've been touching on, bowling is a game
Speaker 2: of skill. So you initially, your initial role directly sets
Speaker 2: the speed and trajectory of the ball as it heads
Speaker 2: towards the pins. Now where it gets interesting is, of course,
Speaker 2: a skilled player, I'm assuming, may feel entirely more in
Speaker 2: control of what happens than me when eyebowl, though we've
Speaker 2: plenty of info to suggest that even they, even an expert,
Speaker 2: even a professional bowler, may feel like they have less
Speaker 2: control than they do. And obviously plenty of pro athletes
Speaker 2: engage in some kind of good luck ritual I'd love
Speaker 2: to hear from sports fans out there if you have
Speaker 2: some really telling examples of this, But I feel like
Speaker 2: you kind of hear about them all the time. Like
Speaker 2: you'll have people that are like literally performing at the
Speaker 2: very you know, top of their sport and are very
Speaker 2: competent from a skill and conditioning standpoint. They have all
Speaker 2: the experience in the world, you know, nobody can touch them,
Speaker 2: and yet they will perhaps also engage in some level
Speaker 2: of superstitious you know, ritual luck scenario.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. That raises a lot of questions in
Speaker 3: my mind. But continue and maybe we'll come back.
Speaker 2: So, whether you are a pro bowler or you know,
Speaker 2: just a casual bowler like myself, then maybe bowls, you know,
Speaker 2: a few times a year. The scenario is still the same.
Speaker 2: Once you send that bowl down the lane, once it
Speaker 2: has left your hand, it's all set in motion. And
Speaker 2: yet I certainly have time and time again caught myself
Speaker 2: in that those moments before it hits trying to nudge
Speaker 2: the ball with my mind toward the center pin, you know,
Speaker 2: not not actually you know, rationally believing I have that
Speaker 2: power to do it, not like turning to everyone and
Speaker 2: being like all right, watch this, everybody. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: gonna bowl and then I'm gonna use my telekinesis to
Speaker 2: get a stride. No, no, no, but I'll catch myself doing
Speaker 2: something either with my hands or with my will, trying
Speaker 2: to will the ball towards the pins.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. You know what can I say something that
Speaker 3: I think helps influence that? Even though this is a
Speaker 3: pure misunderstanding, but rob, if you know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 3: if you watch pro bowlers, they don't just throw the
Speaker 3: ball straight. They put some kind of spin on it
Speaker 3: where it like arcs or hooks. Do you know what
Speaker 3: I'm talking about?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they're a number of those techniques. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my father in law at one point was showing me
Speaker 2: some of those and trying to teach me how to
Speaker 2: do the spin. And also, I mean, a very skilled
Speaker 2: bowler can do a lot of impressive things. But it
Speaker 2: doesn't change the fact that once the ball eats their hand,
Speaker 2: it is set in motion. There's no more that there's
Speaker 2: no telekinesis involved.
Speaker 3: That's right, It's all there in the initial throw. So
Speaker 3: that was their moment of control was when they were
Speaker 3: throwing it. It's not you know, they're not using telekinesis afterwards,
Speaker 3: but it can kind of look like it because it's
Speaker 3: like hooking in a way we're used to, like the
Speaker 3: amateurs used to throw, throwing the ball just straight, but
Speaker 3: when you put the kind of spin on it that
Speaker 3: makes it curve like that, it encourages the idea that
Speaker 3: somehow the bowler is continuing to exert control after it
Speaker 3: has left their hand. Really, sometimes in the throw.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, sometimes there's a flourish or something, and I
Speaker 2: guess to less experienced bowlers too, like myself is like
Speaker 2: sometimes there is a real disconnect between what you think
Speaker 2: you're about to do and what the ball actually does,
Speaker 2: and that can go either way. You can feel like
Speaker 2: in the moment you are in a bowling movie and
Speaker 2: then you get a gutterball, or you can feel like
Speaker 2: you kind of fumbled it and oh you got a
Speaker 2: surprise strike out of it. So these sorts of things
Speaker 2: are possible. So again, I don't actually believe I can
Speaker 2: mentally manipulate bowling balls from a distance, but in the
Speaker 2: heat of the moment, there is that feeling that I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's not even a feeling that I should
Speaker 2: try to do it. I just catch myself doing it,
Speaker 2: and I feel like this is also interconnected with the
Speaker 2: consciously ambiguous notion of intent, aim, and execution. So anyway,
Speaker 2: this connection isn't just something that I've been thinking about.
Speaker 2: It's also referenced in the sources I was looking at.
Speaker 2: I was looking at a couple of different papers. Both
Speaker 2: of them involve social psychologist Daniel M. Wegner, who of
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight through twenty thirteen. I believe he's come
Speaker 2: up on the show before, so he mentions this connection
Speaker 2: between magical thinking and the illusion of control in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, self is Magic. And then there's also
Speaker 2: a paper I was looking at on which he was
Speaker 2: a co author, Everyday Magical Powers the Role of Apparent
Speaker 2: mental Causation and the over Estimation of Personal Influence. The
Speaker 2: lead author on that was psychologist Emily Pronin. This was
Speaker 2: from two thousand and six. Both of these referenced Thompson,
Speaker 2: by the way. Now. In the prone and paper, the
Speaker 2: authors argue that magical thinking may serve a motivational purpose,
Speaker 2: especially in times of stress and uncertainty, and they point
Speaker 2: to several different documented cases of this from Arise in
Speaker 2: Magical thinking among Germans in the interwar period and police
Speaker 2: officers working in high risk environments. They also point out
Speaker 2: some health related scenarios that I believe that this is
Speaker 2: directly from Thompson's research, and then they write, quote, even
Speaker 2: when people recognize the control over life events may be
Speaker 2: impossible to achieve, magical beliefs may arise out of a
Speaker 2: motivation to find meaning in that which they cannot control.
Speaker 2: So they've gotten to point out that quote, basic cognitive
Speaker 2: errors involving the perception of causal relationships when only non
Speaker 2: causal associations are present, along with a need to control
Speaker 2: things and uncontrollable situations, can lead to these kinds of
Speaker 2: acts and beliefs. And indeed, they stress that these sorts
Speaker 2: of acts may occur even when we rationally deny the connection.
Speaker 2: And this touches on sort of like the dual nature
Speaker 2: of human cognition and belief that we've touched on many
Speaker 2: times before. I mean, you can you can have superstitious
Speaker 2: ideas while also having rational ideas in your head, you know,
Speaker 2: we can. We can balance these things and switch back
Speaker 2: and forth between them, and we're not necessarily completely chained
Speaker 2: to one extreme or the other. Right.
Speaker 3: And another way of thinking about it is like we
Speaker 3: we don't always act on what we know, or we
Speaker 3: don't always act as if we know what we know right.
Speaker 2: One example that that discussed in this paper is okay,
Speaker 2: thinking ill of someone and then something bad happens to
Speaker 2: that person you were thinking ill of. They point out
Speaker 2: that this may well cause feelings of guilt in you,
Speaker 2: despite the fact that mere feelings cannot hurt someone. Your
Speaker 2: your thoughts of ill will are not going to actually
Speaker 2: harm someone without without some other things happening in between.
Speaker 2: You know that pure thought is not going to do it,
Speaker 2: But in one of these situations you may feel that guilt.
Speaker 2: And they stressed that what the quote generating consistent thoughts
Speaker 2: related to an event just prior to its occurrence may
Speaker 2: be sufficient to induce feelings of authorship for the event.
Speaker 2: So they carried out a series of experiments that they
Speaker 2: discussed this paper involving subjects being told about appeers physical
Speaker 2: ailments on the on the flip side, being told about
Speaker 2: a peers athletic success. And they also did a third
Speaker 2: and a fourth experiment involving real athletic competitions, and they
Speaker 2: summarized by saying quote. In each study, the relevant outcome
Speaker 2: occurred regardless of participants thoughts. It was experimentally predetermined in
Speaker 2: our first two studies, and it was part of a
Speaker 2: live sporting event in our second two studies. However, in
Speaker 2: each study, participants were more likely to feel and believe
Speaker 2: that they were responsible for the relevant outcome if they
Speaker 2: had generated prior thoughts related to it.
Speaker 3: You know, this is interesting because this would almost connect
Speaker 3: to Thompson's control heuristic model, except it would cut out
Speaker 3: the need for an external action. It would be kind
Speaker 3: of the control heuristic model if the only action you
Speaker 3: really needed was to think about something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you know they don't get into this
Speaker 2: at all, but you know, I can't help but think of,
Speaker 2: you know, various religious worldviews that some of us may
Speaker 2: have come up in where there's a lot of emphasis
Speaker 2: on thought and about like thoughts, having you know, thoughts
Speaker 2: for instance, themselves being sinful and so forth, you know,
Speaker 2: and therefore having like this this reality that goes beyond mirror,
Speaker 2: you know, some mental internalness. But in any area that
Speaker 2: would have to be something that is explored in another paper,
Speaker 2: another discussion now in Wagner's self is magic. His words
Speaker 2: remind me once more of the bowling example. We're just
Speaker 2: we're just talking about again, there's a disconnect between my
Speaker 2: muscle memory, my actions, and my perceptions of the ball
Speaker 2: rolling toward and hopefully hitting the pins. And it's not
Speaker 2: just me, and it's not just bowling. This exact situation
Speaker 2: applies to a great deal of the human condition. He
Speaker 2: points out that our brain only presents us with quote,
Speaker 2: a relatively impoverished account of its own operations, and our
Speaker 2: attempt to make sense of the evidence yields the impression
Speaker 2: that we are freely willing our actions.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is a fantastic point, because I mean
Speaker 3: it not only you know, can you not understand the
Speaker 3: difference of why, you know, one time you throw a
Speaker 3: bowling ball and it was a strike and another time
Speaker 3: you threw it and it was a gutter ball? It's
Speaker 3: not like, you know, it can be frustrating that you
Speaker 3: don't know what made the difference in those two attempts,
Speaker 3: but it can also like you can take a step
Speaker 3: further back and try to examine your authorship of all
Speaker 3: the actions you take, not just like throwing a bowling ball,
Speaker 3: but every single thing you do throughout the day, and
Speaker 3: it becomes increasingly unclear what the difference was that made
Speaker 3: you do anything versus anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He points out there's a certain amount of inference when
Speaker 2: it comes to connecting our thoughts to our actions in
Speaker 2: general and magical thinking. He stresses o curs when people
Speaker 2: quote draw causal inferences relating their thought to their action,
Speaker 2: so the perception of one's own causality is subject to error,
Speaker 2: and he uses a great example here in his writing
Speaker 2: that of turning on a light in your house. Okay,
Speaker 2: simple thing. We do it all the time. And the
Speaker 2: thing is, though we may do it with varying degrees
Speaker 2: of apparent wilfulness. So if you think to yourself, what's
Speaker 2: dark in here? I should, nay will turn on the light,
Speaker 2: and then you do it. Well, this act may feel
Speaker 2: quite wilful.
Speaker 3: Right, But sometimes it's not that conscious or not that intentional,
Speaker 3: is it?
Speaker 2: That's right? He says. Sometimes you might think to yourself, man,
Speaker 2: a cookie sure would be nice right now? So what
Speaker 2: do you do? You walk into the dark kitchen and
Speaker 2: absent mindedly turn on the light on the way to
Speaker 2: the cookie jar. And in this case, the act of
Speaker 2: turning on the light may quote feel less willed and
Speaker 2: more like some sort of alien control.
Speaker 3: Ah. So the connection between intention and efficacy or cause
Speaker 3: in the world can be mysterious in multiple ways. If
Speaker 3: I don't remember willing myself to turn on the light
Speaker 3: right before I do it, it can seem like some
Speaker 3: kind of unconscious magic force might have taken over and
Speaker 3: replaced my conscious will. But at the same time, going
Speaker 3: back to the previous study you talked about, if I
Speaker 3: do remember consciously willing something to happen, and then it
Speaker 3: happens without me taking any apparent action to cause it,
Speaker 3: I can start to wonder again if there's some mysterious
Speaker 3: connecting principle at work. Also regarding mysterious unconscious actions we take.
Speaker 3: I've wanted to mention that as you were talking, Rob,
Speaker 3: I just realized that I've been fiddling with the coiled
Speaker 3: cable that connects my headphones to my microphone, like wrapping
Speaker 3: it around my thumb. I was previously not conscious of
Speaker 3: doing this. I have no idea why I was doing it,
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there are so many examples of this in
Speaker 2: our life, and some of them we catch, sometimes some
Speaker 2: we don't, you know, and it's just a peek into
Speaker 2: some of the ways that an individual might develop a
Speaker 2: view that they can exert psychic, magical, or some other
Speaker 2: form of paranormal control over reality. You know, there are
Speaker 2: other possibilities, other factors involved in this as well. This
Speaker 2: is not like, you know, the one recipe for this
Speaker 2: line of thinking. But and then likewise, going back we
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier, about people in power and so forth,
Speaker 2: we might factor it into cases where individuals put faith
Speaker 2: in another person's supposed powers magical, psychic, etc. Or even
Speaker 2: you can cut all the way a way that away
Speaker 2: and get back to just the idea that like, oh,
Speaker 2: this person's influential, this person can get things done. You know,
Speaker 2: if they believe it, and you know, tying in their charisma,
Speaker 2: they're you know, they're seeming authenticity, we might be more
Speaker 2: likely to buy into that, might buy into the fact
Speaker 2: that they're a great leader, might buy into the fact
Speaker 2: that they can move things with their minds, and so forth.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's fascinating to take all of this,
Speaker 2: you know, to take the illusion of control and apply
Speaker 2: it to this, to some of these scenarios, and think
Speaker 2: about how it could be a contributing factor to some
Speaker 2: of these scenarios again where one one believes that they
Speaker 2: have some sort of a power or feeding into this
Speaker 2: this individual that other people believe have a power.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And and it's really interesting this connection to the
Speaker 3: idea that really analyzing or interrogating the concept of willful
Speaker 3: control over things makes it more and more mysterious. Yeah,
Speaker 3: makes it seem like maybe magic could be involved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again there are other factors to be sure,
Speaker 2: kind of going back to the example of like sin
Speaker 2: and thought. If there is a worldview that one or
Speaker 2: or you know, some sort of script or programming the
Speaker 2: one is privy to that encourages an idea of say
Speaker 2: miracles or psychic powers, you know, be it something that
Speaker 2: is religious in nature or or or even you know,
Speaker 2: non religious and more say based in uh you know,
Speaker 2: conspiracy thinking and so forth.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, that also could could play a role, among
Speaker 2: other things. Their whole host of things influencing are our
Speaker 2: worldview and the way we interact with reality.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I have really enjoyed exploring illusion of control with you, Rob,
Speaker 3: This this has been an interesting one.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it's it's always fascinating. Sometimes
Speaker 2: a little haunting when when we start teasing apart these uh,
Speaker 2: these subjects that involve our outlook on reality and so forth,
Speaker 2: and especially illusions. Uh, you know, because it's sometimes it's
Speaker 2: pointed out that you know, we are also an illusion.
Speaker 2: Our sense of self is an illusion. So you know,
Speaker 2: it can feel a little a little challenging at times
Speaker 2: to start pulling the threads, but also rewarding in the
Speaker 2: end too. All right, we're going to go ahead and
Speaker 2: close out here, but we'd love to hear from everybody
Speaker 2: if you have thoughts on the illusion of control some
Speaker 2: of the specific examples we touched on here, Even something
Speaker 2: as simple as your favorite example of a professional athlete
Speaker 2: who has some sort of a ritual that they engage
Speaker 2: in despite the fact that their skill on their conditioning
Speaker 2: and so forth is beyond reproach, we'd love to hear
Speaker 2: from you. We'll throw out that email address here in
Speaker 2: a minute, but before we do, let's see what else
Speaker 2: do we need to mention here. Remind everyone, as usual
Speaker 2: that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Mister Mail on
Speaker 2: Monday's short form episode on Wednesdays, in a weird house
Speaker 2: cinemaon Fridays. That's our time to set aside most serious
Speaker 2: concerns and just talk about a weird movie. Let's see. Also,
Speaker 2: we'll point out that other ways you can get in
Speaker 2: touch with the show and or other listeners of the show.
Speaker 2: There's a discord group. You can email us and we'll
Speaker 2: send you that discord link. If you're on Facebook, there
Speaker 2: is a Facebook group. It's called the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind discussion module. Seek it out and you can
Speaker 2: request access and you just have to answer a very
Speaker 2: easy trivia question to gain access. So if you want
Speaker 2: to interact with other listeners, that's a great place to go.
Speaker 2: And in general, yeah, we thank everyone out there for
Speaker 2: listening to the show, and if you have time and
Speaker 2: the power to do so, give us some stars, give
Speaker 2: us a nice review somewhere that also helps us.
Speaker 3: Out huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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