Illusion Of Control

In controlling the illusion of experimentation, participants are usually asked to what extent they think their actions have effectively controlled the results. Since the underlying cause in our experiment was the external events of half of the participants, we replaced the standard formula of controllability with the more general phrase “efficiency”. It turns out that this task is sensitive to the effects of the illusion of causality, whether it is when the underlying cause is an external event (for example, Matute et al., 2011) or the behavior of the participant (Blanco et al., 2011). , 2011). In a series of experiments, Langer (1975) observed that, for example, when the task included skill cues, his subjects behaved as if they were controlling random events. [Sources: 7, 11]

Alan Langer was the first to prove the control of illusions, and she explained her findings through confusion and random situations. He suggested that people make control judgments based on “skill attributes.” Ellen Langers’ research shows that when skill cues appear, people are more likely to behave as if they can control in random situations. In a series of experiments, Lange first proved the universality of the illusion of control, and secondly, people are more likely to behave as if they can exercise control in random situations where there are “signs of grasp.” [Sources: 6, 8]

Lange showed that people often act as if random events are under personal control. Lange showed that people often view accidental positive results as positive manipulations. Ellen Langer (1975) was one of the first scientific researchers who pointed out that humans have a positive illusion that they can influence situations through fictional skill clues in random gambling. The most influential to this popular doctrine is Ellen Langer’s (1975) conflicting conclusions about unrealistic hallucinations. [Sources: 8, 11]

The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to manage events, for example, to feel that they are in control of outcomes over which they have no obvious influence. The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to manage events, for example, when someone experiences a sense of control over outcomes that is not clearly affected. The illusion can arise from the fact that people do not have a direct idea of ​​whether they are in control of events. [Sources: 5, 6]

However, when you ask people about their control over random events (this is a typical experimental setup in this document), you can only draw a mistake in one direction: believing that they have more control than they actually do. Time and time again, research has shown that despite wisdom, knowledge, and wisdom, people often believe that they can control events in their lives, even if such control is impossible. Another example was discovered by Alan Langer of Harvard University in 1975. He believed that the prevailing “illusion of control” caused most people to overestimate their ability to control events, even those in which they had no influence. The illusion of control leads to insensitivity to feedback, inhibits learning, and tends to take more objective risks (because the illusion of control reduces subjective risk). [Sources: 0, 3, 8, 12]

Psychologist Daniel Wegner argues that the illusion of control over external events underlies the belief in psychokinesis, the purported paranormal ability to move objects directly using the mind. In lab games, people often report that they control randomly generated results. From a motivational perspective, the illusion of control is expected to be stronger when participants judge the consequences of their own behavior (active participants) than when they judge the consequences of the behavior of others (constrained participants). [Sources: 6, 7, 12]

Delusion is weaker in people who are depressed, and stronger when people have an emotional need to control the outcome. When it comes to accurately assessing control, depressed people have a much better understanding of reality. This stems from a psychological effect known as the illusion of control, a person’s tendency to overestimate their personal ability to control and manage events. They feel that they are being challenged, they feel that the sense of control over its outcome is not working and clearly does not affect their way of thinking. [Sources: 3, 5, 9]

But in their day-to-day life, where they affect many outcomes, underestimating control can be a big mistake. It is important to remember that control in our lives is often illusory. After you have taken all the possible actions in your sphere of influence and control, you must learn to recognize and accept what you cannot control. [Sources: 3, 10, 12]

When people lose control and can only go wrong in one direction, this will of course be discovered. The opposite of the illusion of control is learned helplessness, which describes that if people were previously in a situation where they could not change certain things, they would begin to feel that they could not control their lives. This allows them to give up more quickly when facing obstacles. [Sources: 2, 12]

In 1988, Taylor and Brown believed that positive illusions, including control illusions, are adaptive because they motivate people to persist in completing tasks, otherwise they might refuse. However, Bandura (1989) is fundamentally interested in the usefulness of optimistic assumptions about control and performance in controlled, non-hallucid situations, and he also suggests that in situations where hallucinations may have costly or disastrous consequences , A realistic vision is needed. The survival and well-being of mankind. Lefkult later believed that the sense of control, the illusion of the possibility of making a personal choice, played a clear and positive role in sustaining life. [Sources: 5, 6, 11]

The illusion of control was formally identified by Ellen Langer in 1975 in her article, The Illusion of Control, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The illusion of control is the tendency of people to believe that they can control, or at least influence, outcomes that the researchers believe they have no influence on. It is a mentally constructed psychological illusion that is an overrated tendency for people to think they have the ability to manipulate certain events as if they had paranormal and mystical powers. [Sources: 8, 9, 10]

For example, someone feels they can influence and control certain outcomes that have little or no effect on them. People will obviously give up control if they think the other person has more knowledge or skills in areas such as medicine, where real skills and knowledge are involved. I believe these people are more likely to rely on the illusion of control to reinforce their hope that retention will provide the kind of security they crave. Ironically, there can be more “control” in a flexible position than in a position characterized by a tendency to keep everything within a well-defined comfort zone. [Sources: 3, 6, 9]

Over the years, many studies have shown that we perceive things differently depending on whether we feel like we are in control of them. This illusion arises in cases where something is clearly random, for example, in a lottery, and in situations where we clearly do not influence the result, for example, in sports matches. This type of illusion works as an effect because we are completely convinced that we have the ability to manipulate completely random events, and they are in fact beyond our control. [Sources: 2, 9]

— Slimane Zouggari

 

##### Sources #####

[0]: https://kathrynwelds.com/2013/01/13/useful-fiction-optimism-bias-of-positive-illusions/

[1]: https://bestmentalmodels.com/2018/09/25/illusion-of-control/

[2]: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/illusion-of-control/

[3]: https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-illusion-of-control

[4]: https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/illusion-of-control/m02nzt4?hl=en

[5]: https://nlpnotes.com/2014/04/06/illusion-of-control/

[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_control

[7]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4013923/

[8]: https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Illusion_of_control

[9]: https://discover.hubpages.com/education/A-Phenomenon-called-the-illusion-of-control

[10]: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/the-illusion-of-control-you-are-your-worst-enemy

[11]: http://positivepsychology.org.uk/positive-illusions/

[12]: https://www.jasoncollins.blog/the-illusion-of-the-illusion-of-control/