February 8, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss our psychological tendency to overestimate our control over events, with implications for everything from gambling and paranormal beliefs to our movements through everyday life.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And to begin today's episode,
I want to start by sketching out a little scenario
to help you imagine something and investigate your intuitions. So
I want you to imagine you are waiting on a
friend in the lobby of a casino hotel. Maybe you're
in Las Vegas, and you realize you've got some time
(00:35):
to kill, maybe fifteen minutes before your friend gets there,
and you've got a few spare bucks in your pocket.
You kind of get the itch to go blow it
on one of the slot machines that keeps making all
these exciting noises nearby. And by the way, this is
just to illustrate a point. This is not behavior that
we're necessarily advising, because, oh, I don't know, we've done
episodes on slot machines before, and you know, even if
(00:57):
you plan to lose all the money you bet, there's
always the chance that you just might have too much
fun with them.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah. Back in twenty fifteen, we did an episode titled
one arm Bandits the Science of slot machines, and I
found it rather illuminating myself. So I'd recommend anyone who's
interested and just just to what extent these are fair
or unfair, I recommend go back and listen to that
episode spoiler the House always wins.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I haven't been to Vegas, but from what I understand,
there's a lot of fun stuff to do other than gambling.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Oh yeah, Vegas is great. My family and I went
out there for the first time a few months back,
and yeah, there's some great restaurants. You see the Hoover
Dam not too far away, and they have a tremendous
male wolf, so lot to see.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
There is that one Omega Mart.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's Omega Mart. Yeah it's special. It's pretty great.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
But anyway, so back to the scenario. So you decide
you're going to blow some money at a slot machine.
You go up to the machine, you put your money in,
but you're new to this and you don't see the
button that spins the digital wheel. So you start looking
around and there's a lady sitting at the slot machine
next to you, and she plays these things all the time.
She sees you scanning the machine in confusion, and she
(02:13):
leans over and says it's right here, and she reaches
across and presses the button for you, And then you
see the wheel spin on the digital screen. It slows down,
there's a ding, and it's a bus. Do you lose
your bet? Now? Everybody's reaction to the scenario might be
somewhat different, but I think an extremely common reaction for
(02:34):
people to have would be annoyance and a feeling of
having been wronged by the woman who pushed the button
for you. And this could be for a number of reasons.
Some of those reasons might be purely social, like it
might feel like a violation of your personal space by
a stranger. You might be upset that somebody robbed you
of the fun of pressing a button, because sometimes it
(02:56):
can be fun to press a button. But beyond all that,
I think a very common reaction, even among people who
rationally know better, would be a feeling of having been cheated.
This random stranger didn't just invade your personal space and
interrupt your fun. She lost your money for you. It's
her fault you lost that money and did not win.
(03:19):
At the same time, you would probably realize correctly that
a slot machine is not a game of skill. It's
a game of chance, and thus it literally makes no
difference whatsoever to your probability of winning whether you push
the button or someone else does. It is not as
if you placed a bet on, you know, throwing darts
at a dartboard or something where conceivably you might be
(03:42):
better at hitting the center than the person who throws
the dart for you. Everybody knows that with the slot machine,
it truly does not matter who presses the button. And yet,
even though we know this rationally, I think I think
if I personally were in this situation, it would be
really hard for me to shake the feeling that this
stranger had cheated me out of possible winnings. So I
(04:05):
would know it's not true, but it would just be
an extremely tenacious illusion that whoever presses the button really matters.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, this is interesting to think about it. I hadn't
really thought about it so much. You know, we'll get
into the idea of other rituals associated with this sort
of behavior, like, you know, am I wearing my lucky
shirt or not? When I go to gamble, or when
I go to watch my favorite sports team or take
a test, et cetera. So it's interesting to think about
(04:34):
how this scenario I push the button versus a stranger
pushes the button. How that compares or doesn't compare to
the luck related scenario of I push the button with
my lucky shirt on or I push the button without
my lucky shirt on. Are we more likely to disregard
the logic of the latter? What have we left the
stranger wear our lucky shirt? That still doesn't seem right?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, yeah, these are all you know, who presses the button,
whether they're wearing their lucky charm or not. These are
all variations on the idea that there is something you
can do to increase or decrease your chance of winning
at the slot machine. And it's just not true, Like,
none of these things influence what your chances of winning are.
Your chances are equally low no matter what.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, your chances are all locked up in that machine already,
they are programmed into it. And who pushes that button?
Who actually ends up executing the final the final button push,
whatever form that takes in a given gambling machine, it's
already been figured out by the.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Machine, right, And so I sketched out this scenario to
illustrate a concept in psychology called the illusion of control.
So the illusion of control refers to a common type
of cognitive illusion, a mistaken pattern of reasoning in which
we overestimate the extent to which our choices or behavior
(05:59):
can effect outcomes, even totally random or uncontrollable outcomes. So,
according to illusion of control theory, either we think we
have control over an outcome when we have no control
at all, or we do have some control, but we
think we have more control than we actually do. So
(06:20):
today we're kicking off a series where we're going to
take a look at research on the illusion of control,
to what extent the concept is a valid description of
how we think, what the evidence for it is, some
criticisms of the concept, how it works in theory and practice,
and why we might experience it to the extent that
we do.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, and it's going to be interesting to talk about
this and think about it, especially in a world that
can very often feel rather out of our control, and
that as well discuss plays into the whole scenario.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
That's right. But before we dive into the research on
this subject, I thought it would be good to kick
off with some just classic examples that we can think
of from day to day life stuff. You don't even
need an experiment to see. You can just you know,
it happens to us all the time we do it.
You already mentioned Rob the idea of lucky rituals that
people put in place to help steer the outcome of
(07:13):
a public event on which the ritual has no rational
reason to have any influence. So whether your football team
wins that, you know, does that depend on whether you're
wearing your lucky shirt. And people might participate in lucky
rituals like this for a number of different reasons. Not
all of those reasons would be a genuine expectation that
(07:34):
it will help influence the outcome of the event. But
to the extent that someone does feel it will actually
change the probability of you getting the outcome you want,
that would be an example of the illusion of control.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, yeah, because sometimes these activities, you know, various lucky items.
Sometimes it's probably more in the fun category than anything.
You know, you wear your lucky scarf to go enjoy
a football game other football fans. You know, yeah, it's
just a fun thing to.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Do, or just to regulate your own emotions. Like it
might be literally functional, but operating on the self instead
of on the external world.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah. Yeah, and as always, you know, to what degree
does something become maladaptive or a hindrance. I mean, you
do hear cases of Okay, someone's wearing their their lucky
shirt to a game. Okay, fair, someone's wearing their lucky
underwear to a game. Fair, Someone's wearing their lucky underwear
to this game and they wore it to last game
(08:31):
and hasn't been washed since last game. You hear about
cases like that as well. And I don't know, I
think maybe in some of those cases there's another discussion
to have there, But I don't know. Sports and their rituals.
There's a lot going on here.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yeah, that's the version that's truly maladaptive.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Now other times, you know, I think we shouldn't dismiss
the importance of religious faith in all of this, particularly
regarding amulets. Various traditions, various religions out there have some
sort of an amulant tradition, some sort of essentially a
lucky charm tradition, be it a crucifix or a small
statue of a deity that you may carry around with
(09:09):
you and that may be used casually or you know,
very devotedly. There are different approaches to that as well.
There's all spectrum in that area of religious faith as well. Well.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, and I'd say that might well be one of
those things that is literally efficacious in some way. Maybe
not in the sense of changing the outcome of a
game or something, but it does change something about you
and is helpful in that way.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And then there's the notion that a lot of times
the addition of a lucky totem or a lucky practice
of some sort very often does not necessarily induce added
cost or burden. You know, even if we're mostly dismissive
of the idea that said item or said activity will
enhance our luck or will make some sort of experience
(09:59):
you know, passes buy with more ease. And even if
we're not we don't have a huge investment in that idea.
It kind of comes down to, well, why not, right,
is it going to hurt? I might as well have
the amulet on me. Maybe it will help if there's
a one percent chance it helps, great, because all it
is just setting in my pocket.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Right and you know, I plan to get into this
more in one of the later episodes in the series,
maybe in part two. But there is a question of
to the extent that we experience an illusion of control,
why do we experience one? Are there ways in which
it might actually be beneficial to human life even if
it's generating false beliefs?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah? I mean we kind of get into that basic
area of like, yeah, and it makes life a little easier,
and it's not hurting you, it's not hurting other people,
then why not?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Okay? I want to mention another example from everyday life.
This one comes up a lot when people think about
illusion of control. The closed door button on an elevator.
Does that button actually do anything? I think this example
actually has two levels of possible illusion of control. The
first one and we can quibble with whether this counts
(11:05):
as illusion of control or not. But the first level
is the question of whether the closed door button actually
closes the door. I was reading some articles about this
and was getting some contradictory conclusions from them, but like
according to there was an article in the New York
Times that cited some people in the elevator industry who
says who say that in most cases the button actually
(11:29):
does not change how fast the door closes. Maybe it
does in some percentage of elevators, but in the majority,
at least within the United States, it doesn't. I was
reading in another article that lifts in the UK are
more likely to have a fully functional closed door button
that does accelerate how fast the door shut. Elevators in
the US most of the time close on a timer,
(11:51):
and even when the closed door button is functional, it
probably works on a delay from when you press it
instead of immediately, So it's really questionable how much faster,
if at all, the doors will close after the button
is pressed. So I think the answer is not totally
clear on how often the closed door button does anything
in the States, but many people consider these buttons in
(12:13):
the US just a placebo. It does nothing except maybe
makes the passengers feel better.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Sometimes I feel like the closed door button exists mostly
to enhance the awkwardness of reaching for the open door button.
When someone tries to catch the elevator behind you one
of the doors close closing, will they correctly assume that
you were trying to help them, or will they think
that you were desperately trying to keep them from boarding
the elevator Like close faster. No one else on this
elevator with.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Me that's a good point. Now, on the other hand,
I think you could make a good case that the
closed door button shouldn't count as illusion of control because
there is genuine ambiguity about whether it does something or not, Like,
people really don't have information that should tell them whether
or not it works, and there's a reasonable assumption that
it should work. So pressing it is even whether or
(13:01):
not it works because you have a reasonable expectation that
it would.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, it says it works. You're just doing what the
button is inviting you to.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Do, exactly. But there's the second level of door closed
button that I think is definitely illusion of control, which
is have you ever seen somebody who's in a hurry
they get in an elevator, they not only press the button,
which may or may not work, they press the button
after watching somebody else press it already, like, oh, the
other guy didn't press it, right, I need to press
(13:31):
it to make sure it'll work.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimes you get on board an
elevator and there's this moment of uncertainty did the other
person press it? You didn't see them press it, you
would maybe assume they did, and it might be a
little awkward if you press it now, because then you're
saying like, I'm not sure you did this right, I'm
not sure you did it. I'm going to press it,
but yeah, if you see them do it, that is
an extra level of social awkwardness right there. And I
(13:58):
guess you're leaning into the idea that, Okay, if I
press it more then it'll be more likely.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
To comply exactly. Yeah, maybe there is reasoning of that sort,
like I wonder if button presses are cumulative.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah. I often fall into this as well. I mean,
I'll do this thing where I go to use the
clicker to lock the car, and I won't press it once.
I'll press it two or three times, which confounds members
of my family when I do this, But for some reason,
like it just feels like three is more certain, even
though there's no cumulative effect there. There's not like, Okay,
(14:33):
if you press it three times to lock, you have
to press it three times to unlock it, which I
don't know. I'd kind of like that feature personally, but
that's just not how it works. One click should do it,
but my mind thinks additional clicks would be necessary.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Triples is best. Then you know it's safe.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
That's true, but it's not true. It's just one of
those things we do. Another thing, another like clear example
of this one that I think a lot of us
encounter rather frequent, and another potential placebo button is the
crosswalk button, and a lot of the same situations apply here.
You know, you get up there to the crosswalk, there's
(15:09):
someone else already standing there. You assume they pressed it already,
but you're gonna press it as well, or you're waiting
on it. Seems to be taking forever. You know it's
been pressed, you've pressed it once, Maybe press it two
or three more times to let it know that you
mean business. You need to get across the street, Throw
up the red light, throw up the little green walk
in or white or light up walking man.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Also, as with the elevator button, there's legitimate question over
whether the button does anything or not.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That's right. I was looking into this a little bit,
and the broad answer on whether the cross button works
at all seems to be a resounding. It depends so
different countries, different city traffic systems, They're gonna have the
button function differently. Sometimes it actually speeds up crossings, other
times it doesn't. But what do we do? We push
(15:57):
it anyway, And part of that is again, standing there,
you probably don't have anything else to do, Push it
a few more times and see if it works.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
As we already established, sometimes it's just fun to push
a button.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, I mean, you're in a situation where you either
have no control or you realize you have a limited
amount of control. What can you do. You can't get
out there and stop cars, you can't stop traffic, but
you can press the button again and again, and it
feels like at least you're doing something now. The illusion
(16:35):
of control also applies to situations in which we know
experience anxiety due to perceived lack of control. And one
of these, and I can relate to this a bit,
is flying. Two examples I've read about with this scenario.
Or of course, there's of course pre enduring flight routines.
Many of these are so slight that we might not
even think about them as being pre flight rituals having
(16:58):
to do with an illusion of control. The examples given
in the Air Travel Design Guide include things like wearing
comfy clothing or brushing on one's teeth before a flight.
I don't know, I those just sound like good things
to do before a long flight.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, but they also controlling an outcome. I mean that
just seems like that's what you do to feel good.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, But I mean, I guess, and I can relate
to this a bit. It's like, maybe, like feeling good
is that thing you have control over, and so maybe
you've become more indulgent of those in a way to
sort of, you know, to make something that can be
uncomfortable more comfortable, which is just obviously you want to
do that. But also it's like so many things are
out of my control here, but the exact headpillow have
(17:41):
I have is in my control. The exact playlist I
download ahead of time is in my control. How you
know which movie I downloaded my phone prior to the flight,
that's within my control. I will do that, and I'll
put a lot of effort into.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
That, and maybe from all of that effort at control,
there could be some conceptual creep where actually it makes
you feel like the plane is less likely to crash.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah. I mean, and I don't even know if necessarily
everyone's mind directly goes there, you know, but it's like,
you know, you're you're dealing with one thing that they
When I was reading this ear Travel Design Guide website
that they pointed out, you know, it's like there's a
lot going on when you fly. Obviously, you know you're
you're traveling, your your your your circadian rhythms are are interrupted,
(18:23):
you may eat lunch three times in a given day,
that sort of thing, and then there are all these
other constraints. So there's a lot going on in the
mind and in the body. They also cite gamification as
a as a way that we interact with this illusion
of control. I found this bit interesting. This is a quote.
The airport is a unique type of architectural typology where
(18:45):
the spaces are subdivided and arranged to usher large groups
of people to move uni directionally. This encourages people to
develop strategies to game the system and to feel competitive
with other passengers moving through the airport.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Oh my god, that's right. I feel seen that. That's
like I do not I'm not normally a competitive walker,
like trying to get ahead of people walking, you know,
around me on the sidewalk. The only scenario in which
I catch myself doing that is at the airport, and
I want, yeah, that may be right. That it's like,
because it's funnel, you know, structured to have everybody moving
(19:20):
in the same direction, and it's so yeah, controlled like that.
It's some for some reason, makes you feel like I've
got to get in front of this this guy here,
you know, I've got Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So it's interesting to think about it from a design
standpoint where a lot of control needs to be taken
away from people going through this system, but you also
need to give them a sense of control, control over
little things, and and also realize that there's going to
be this illusion of control in place as well. But
you have another example to to to bring up here,
(19:53):
and this one is even more fun than flying. Oh.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
I wonder if you had the same experience. So I
was thinking back to childhood, and this may be an
embarrassing admission, but I'm thinking about the illusory functionality of
objectively non responsive video game controls. A couple of examples here.
I am at the Pizza Hut. I'm a little kid.
I desperately want to play the Neogo machine or the
(20:18):
X Men Arcade cabinet, but I have no quarters, so
I can't play. But while these machines are idle, there
is a kind of pre recorded gameplay demo that loops
on the screen, so it looks like somebody's playing. You know,
the characters are walking around fighting the bad guys and stuff,
and according to vague memories, I can't be sure I'm
right about this, but I think I would sometimes go
(20:41):
up to the machine and falsely believe that I was
maybe somewhat partially controlling the gameplay in this demo by
moving the joystick around without putting money in. Or maybe
what I'm remembering is that I would stare at the
machine while the demo's going, and I would not be
touching it, but I would be imagining that this were possible.
(21:03):
Another variation is a trick. Sometimes I think people would
play on their little siblings with home video game consoles,
so instead of fighting over whose turn it is to
play Mario, maybe the big sister actually plays Mario and
gives the little sister another controller which is not plugged
in to make her think she's playing, while actually she's
(21:24):
just watching the big sister play on the screen and
pressing buttons that do nothing. I recall this happening around
me and being surprisingly convincing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I guess maybe's more convincing with some games than others,
But I remember I did this as well with arcade
games when I was a little kid, and arguably with
I mean X Men Arcade Cabinet. That was a pretty
great game. But on the other hand, you're probably better
off just thinking you were playing it. Looking back at
it from a modern standpoint.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I really liked being Colossus and doing the roar.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Oh yeah, the yeah, it's funny. I had an experience
with just this the other day. We were out to
eat at a place that had arcade machines and they
were old arcade machines, and my son and one of
his friends and my son's eleven. Now, they went up
to these machines and I hadn't given them any quarters,
(22:18):
and I think I should give them some quarters so
they can play these machines. But they're over there moving
the sticks around, watching the screen, and I was like, oh,
I think they're just pretending to play.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And then I was like, I think maybe they're a
little too old to be doing that. And then I
asked them, do you guys want some real quarters? They're like, oh,
these machines are free, so it was a non issue.
But yeah, yeah, the reaches, you reach a point where
you outgrow it for sure, where You don't just want
to watch the games. You don't just want to watch
other people play these games. You want to get in there,
(22:48):
even if you are going to fail miserably and just
have to sing more quarters in the thing.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I will pay the endless tax to be Colosses. Yeah. Wait,
what was your X Men Arcade game character?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Oh? You know, oftentimes when I would play, there were
like a lot of people, so it's like whoever you
could get. But you know, obviously Colossus will Cyclops was
pretty great. He had the ibam attack, you know, that
would really tear up the screen.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
I remember Colossus was my first pick and night Crawler
was my second.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Oh yeah, he had a good attack as well. I
mean really, I would just be happy. I was happy
to be playing the X Men Arcade game.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
All right, Well, I think maybe we should talk about
some of the research history on the illusion of control,
some of the papers that have explored this topic in
the past. And though this phenomenon had been I think
noticed previously in a variety of ways. It gets the
name illusion of control from important research by the American
(23:43):
psychologist Ellen J. Langer, who published a paper in nineteen
seventy five called the Illusion of Control in the Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Langer was born in nineteen forty seven. She's also known
for her work on aging and mindfulness theory. I also
want to call out that she was a series consultant
on a BBC series title The Young Ones. But this
is not the classic comedy series, but rather a documentary
that explored reminiscence therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I'm not familiar either way. What's the comedy series?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Oh, the Young Ones? Oh? This is a classic British
comedy series about these young men living in a like
a dormitory house type situation. Yeah, and they would also
have musical guests on the show, like Motorhead was on
one of the episodes.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, so yeah, classic classic series. I'm sure it may
have come up in passing on Weird House Cinema before,
but I have a feeling in the future we'll probably
touch on some films on Weird House Cinema that include
actors from that show. All right, But The Young Ones
a series that she was associated This is a documentary
series that came like decades later.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Okay, okay. But in the nineteen seventy five paper The
Illusion of Control, Langer defined the phenomenon more narrowly than
we've been talking about. She defined the illusion of control
as quote, an expectancy of a personal success probability inappropriately
higher than the objective probability would warrant. So I'm not
(25:14):
going to do a detailed breakdown of Langer's full paper here,
because there are like six experiments total a lot of
variables being tested, but I'll summarize the main idea and
a couple of highlights that stuck out to me. So
her intro mentions a bunch of different reasons for thinking that,
in her words, quote, while people may pay lip service
(25:35):
to the concept of chance, they behave as though chance
events are subject to control. And she produces a lot
of examples given to provide prima facie evidence of this
idea before the experiments are carried out. And one of
these examples that I thought was interesting was a sociological
observation of how people treat dice when gambling. She mentioned
(26:00):
particularly behavior observed by Hinslin in nineteen sixty seven. So
the idea is, if you watch people playing a dice
based game, maybe you're in a casino in Vegas again,
and you go up to a craps table. Whatever their
true beliefs about chance or skill being involved in this game,
and it is a game of chance, their externally visible
(26:23):
behavior implies that they think they have some degree of
control over the numbers they roll with the dice. Examples
here would include that people tend to roll dice more
softly if they want to roll low numbers, and throw
the dice hard if they want to roll high numbers.
They appear to concentrate in preparation for the dice throw
(26:45):
the same way a person would concentrate before like doing
a skill based throw, like an aimed throw if they're
playing darts or something. And this belief in dice rolls
as a skilled activity also seem to be present and
observers because other people at the table would tend to
bet with a person who appeared to be exerting more
(27:07):
control in this way.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Oh that's fascinating, you know, you know, I don't gamble
with the dice, but I do throw some D twenties
pretty much every week in Dungeons and Dragons, and I
know that I do catch myself. I hadn't really thought
about it before, but like, if I'm rolling especially an
important D twenty I'm gonna I'm gonna put a little
time and effort into it, and there's gonna be a pause.
(27:30):
I'm gonna make sure my form is right. I'm gonna
make sure I get an appropriate clatter, you know. From that,
From that that twenty as I give it a roll.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
I do exactly the same thing, and I it feels
like I can roll the dice better or worse. I
know that I can't.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, I'm still gonna get a natural one here and there,
but but it feels better for some reason.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And to be fair, dice rolls in reality are probably
not perfectly random, like I think. I've read about gambling
cheats who with a lot of training claim that they
can learn ways to hold or toss the dice so
as to increase the chances of getting the role they want.
I think, especially if they do things you're not allowed
to do, like sliding the dice on the velvet instead
(28:13):
of actually throlling it, throwing them so they tumble. But anyway,
for the vast, vast majority of regular gamblers, this is
not the case. People cannot do this most for the
most part, and dice can be treated as effectively random
if they weren't effectively, random casinos would not use them.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Anyway. To come back to Langer's paper from seventy five,
so to test for an illusion of control, which she hypothesized,
she did six experiments in which chance based games had
various elements that we would associate with skill based games
introduced and this was her idea. It was that if
(29:03):
you make a game feel like it is skill based
even though it's clearly not, people will be confused into
thinking that they have control over outcomes that they actually don't.
For one example, one variable that is explored in this
paper is the variable of competition. If you are competing
(29:25):
against an opponent in a skill based game, the ability
of your opponent determines your likelihood of winning. Therefore, if
you're placing bets on whether or not you're gonna win,
how much you bet will in part depend on how
good your opponent is at the game. So you know,
if you're playing chess against a chess pro, you're probably
gonna bet less or maybe bet nothing. If you're playing
(29:48):
chess against somebody you perceive as worse than you at chess,
you will probably bet more. Of course, if it's a
purely chance based game, there is no relevant skill variable.
So if you're offered the chance to bet on outcomes,
your betting behavior should be based on something else, maybe
social factors, maybe just baseline appetite for risk, maybe a
(30:09):
desire to be seen by others as taking risks, etc.
It should be based on something other than your perception
of whether you're likely to win based on how good
your opponent is. That doesn't make any difference in a
chance based game. So in the first experiment described in
the study, Langer had people play a purely chance based
(30:29):
card game. The game was high card draw between two players.
No skill involved, pure luck of the draw. You pick
a card out of the deck. Is your card higher
than the other person's. Is there any room in looking
at that game to think I'm better than other people
at this? There shouldn't be. But the independent variable manipulated
(30:51):
by the experimenters here was the behavior and appearance of
your opponent. Do they seem confident and self assured or
do they seem awkward and nervous and prepared to lose?
In other words, are you playing against somebody who feels
like a winner or not? And remember, there's no logical
(31:12):
reason anybody should be a winner at this game. There's
zero skill involved, and yet the experiment did find that
people were willing to bet significantly more against a competitor
who seemed awkward and nervous than they were against a
competitor who seemed outgoing and confident. Now, I think this
is a really interesting result, but it's important to note
(31:33):
the limitations of this experimental design, and Langer herself flags
some of these limitations in the paper, so they didn't
go unnoticed by the authors here. So it seems like this.
It seems likely that this result could be caused by
a mistaken perception that skill or control would somehow factor
(31:53):
into this random game, But you can't be sure that's
the cause guiding the differences in how people bet. Maybe
other variables are operating here in response to the behavior
and appearance of the competitor. Maybe they have to do
with how the subject wants to be perceived in terms
of taking risks or not. Who knows. There could be
(32:14):
other things at work here. So that's the competition element,
which Langer concludes could make a chance based game have
illusory qualities of a skill based game. Other elements like
this explored in the paper are choice. So the idea
is if you give people a choice over, say, which
lottery ticket they receive. Of course it makes no difference
(32:36):
in the probability of winning, it increases their feeling of
the likelihood of winning, though with the choice element in particular.
There's a study I came across from twenty twenty one.
I might get into this more in the second episode,
but that study undercuts specifically the choice variable in particular,
So whether or not choice has this effect is up
(32:59):
for debate. But other ones explored in this paper are
familiarity with the game or with elements of the game.
So familiarity would be associated with a better chance of
winning a skill based game. Right, if you've played the
game before, you're probably better at it. You're more likely
to win. In a chance game, it doesn't matter. But
the study found that familiarity made people more confident in
(33:20):
their ability to win.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Okay, I mean I could see where like if you
know that what the odds are, even if you know
the odds are slim, like you do the math, You're like,
all right, I have a five percent chance of pulling
the right card. You know you could Still there's still
plenty of room in the human psyche to lean into
that and think I've got a five percent shot. That's
that's a non zero percent chance of winning this game.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Well, and there are games that have that are largely
determined by chance, but also have skill elements where familiarity
can make a big difference. Like I would say familiarity
with playing poker probably makes a big difference in how
well you do, because how well you do in poker
is a mix of chance and skill. You know, it's
the chance of what cards you draw, but also the
(34:05):
skill of like your betting strategy and all that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, I guess it also comes down to, like, what
does it mean to lose in a given game. I
haven't played much in the way of poker, but it's
my understanding like a game like poker gambling games where
actual money of any value is involved, losing just sucks.
There's no fun in losing. If you're losing at the game,
you're not having a good time. Whereas, and certainly you
can take that attitude, unfortunately into any gaming scenario. But
(34:31):
if you're doing it right, losing or rolling poorly, whatever
the exact form this takes in say, Dungeons and Dragons
is not necessarily bad, it can be a great moment
for character development, storytelling, and so forth. Likewise, just for
fun games like I'll play a bit of this little
phone game called Marvel Snap. It's pretty fun. You're not
(34:54):
betting any real money on it, and sometimes like losing.
Sometimes losing is like earlier, but other times it's amusing
to see how the other person beats you. And then
sometimes you know, you know, okay, I've got a very
slim chance of pulling this combo off or you know
this real hail Mary maneuver to use a sports term,
But sometimes you go for it because you don't have
(35:15):
money on the line. It's not the end of the world.
If you lose, you're likely to lose, but if there's
a small chance you're going to pull off something amazing,
you go for it. And you do that in games
like Dungeons and Dragons as well.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
That's right, and this highlights that, I mean, a big
thing about studying games is that there are different reasons
people play games, and not all games are just about winning.
I think one reason that games like this, if you're
going to study them in terms of trying to find
people's real motivation to win, you need things like cash prizes,
(35:48):
because that makes the winning condition really meaningful. Yeah, because yeah,
if there's not money involved, I'm just like, I don't know,
it's fun to just play a weird game and lose
and not know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I mean, where a game like high card draw, it's
only going to be interesting if there's money involved.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
In missum exactly. But anyway, coming back, so, this study
found in its experiments that familiarity with a game, even
a game purely of chance, where familiarity would actually not
make any difference at all, people still seem to behave
as if they thought it made a difference. Another variable
looked at in these experiments was the subject's level of involvement.
(36:26):
You know, how involved or hands on are you with
the process that decides the winner. So, in general, this
original nineteen seventy five paper found that, yes, experiments do
find that adding in elements that superficially remind people of
skill based games increases the illusion of control. And the
(36:47):
research did not stop there. There have been many, many
studies on the illusion of control in the decade since
this paper from nineteen seventy five. There have been sort
of three major branches of investigatory methods to look into
the evidence for the illusion of control and to understand
what variables influence when and the extent to which it occurs.
(37:10):
There's also been some criticism of the idea and maybe
looking at different theoretical ways to make sense of the
results of these kinds of experiments. And so I think
maybe in the next episode we're going to talk a
bit more about the research history, talk about what some
variables are that determine when people experience an illusion of control,
(37:30):
and look at criticisms of the concept.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
All right, so join us next time as we'll continue
this look at the illusion of control. In the meantime,
we'd love to hear from everyone out there, because you know,
we've touched on some very basic ideas about human nature
here and specific examples of gameplay and gambling and so forth,
and so I know you're gonna have a lot of
(37:55):
thoughts and we'd love to hear from you, so write in.
We'll have that email address here at the end of
the oppis a couple other ways to interact with the show.
I haven't no think I've mentioned these recently, but if
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to Blow your Mind discussion module. You just go there.
You ask to be admitted and if I think you
have to answer a question, that's a very easy one
(38:17):
you should be able to get if you listen to
the show. Also, there is a discord server room. What
have you for, stuff to blow your mind? If you
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(38:38):
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Speaker 3 (38:58):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And to begin today's episode,
I want to start by sketching out a little scenario
to help you imagine something and investigate your intuitions. So
I want you to imagine you are waiting on a
friend in the lobby of a casino hotel. Maybe you're
in Las Vegas, and you realize you've got some time
(00:35):
to kill, maybe fifteen minutes before your friend gets there,
and you've got a few spare bucks in your pocket.
You kind of get the itch to go blow it
on one of the slot machines that keeps making all
these exciting noises nearby. And by the way, this is
just to illustrate a point. This is not behavior that
we're necessarily advising, because, oh, I don't know, we've done
episodes on slot machines before, and you know, even if
(00:57):
you plan to lose all the money you bet, there's
always the chance that you just might have too much
fun with them.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah. Back in twenty fifteen, we did an episode titled
one arm Bandits the Science of slot machines, and I
found it rather illuminating myself. So I'd recommend anyone who's
interested and just just to what extent these are fair
or unfair, I recommend go back and listen to that
episode spoiler the House always wins.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I haven't been to Vegas, but from what I understand,
there's a lot of fun stuff to do other than gambling.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Oh yeah, Vegas is great. My family and I went
out there for the first time a few months back,
and yeah, there's some great restaurants. You see the Hoover
Dam not too far away, and they have a tremendous
male wolf, so lot to see.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
There is that one Omega Mart.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's Omega Mart. Yeah it's special. It's pretty great.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
But anyway, so back to the scenario. So you decide
you're going to blow some money at a slot machine.
You go up to the machine, you put your money in,
but you're new to this and you don't see the
button that spins the digital wheel. So you start looking
around and there's a lady sitting at the slot machine
next to you, and she plays these things all the time.
She sees you scanning the machine in confusion, and she
(02:13):
leans over and says it's right here, and she reaches
across and presses the button for you, And then you
see the wheel spin on the digital screen. It slows down,
there's a ding, and it's a bus. Do you lose
your bet? Now? Everybody's reaction to the scenario might be
somewhat different, but I think an extremely common reaction for
(02:34):
people to have would be annoyance and a feeling of
having been wronged by the woman who pushed the button
for you. And this could be for a number of reasons.
Some of those reasons might be purely social, like it
might feel like a violation of your personal space by
a stranger. You might be upset that somebody robbed you
of the fun of pressing a button, because sometimes it
(02:56):
can be fun to press a button. But beyond all that,
I think a very common reaction, even among people who
rationally know better, would be a feeling of having been cheated.
This random stranger didn't just invade your personal space and
interrupt your fun. She lost your money for you. It's
her fault you lost that money and did not win.
(03:19):
At the same time, you would probably realize correctly that
a slot machine is not a game of skill. It's
a game of chance, and thus it literally makes no
difference whatsoever to your probability of winning whether you push
the button or someone else does. It is not as
if you placed a bet on, you know, throwing darts
at a dartboard or something where conceivably you might be
(03:42):
better at hitting the center than the person who throws
the dart for you. Everybody knows that with the slot machine,
it truly does not matter who presses the button. And yet,
even though we know this rationally, I think I think
if I personally were in this situation, it would be
really hard for me to shake the feeling that this
stranger had cheated me out of possible winnings. So I
(04:05):
would know it's not true, but it would just be
an extremely tenacious illusion that whoever presses the button really matters.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, this is interesting to think about it. I hadn't
really thought about it so much. You know, we'll get
into the idea of other rituals associated with this sort
of behavior, like, you know, am I wearing my lucky
shirt or not? When I go to gamble, or when
I go to watch my favorite sports team or take
a test, et cetera. So it's interesting to think about
(04:34):
how this scenario I push the button versus a stranger
pushes the button. How that compares or doesn't compare to
the luck related scenario of I push the button with
my lucky shirt on or I push the button without
my lucky shirt on. Are we more likely to disregard
the logic of the latter? What have we left the
stranger wear our lucky shirt? That still doesn't seem right?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, yeah, these are all you know, who presses the button,
whether they're wearing their lucky charm or not. These are
all variations on the idea that there is something you
can do to increase or decrease your chance of winning
at the slot machine. And it's just not true, Like,
none of these things influence what your chances of winning are.
Your chances are equally low no matter what.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, your chances are all locked up in that machine already,
they are programmed into it. And who pushes that button?
Who actually ends up executing the final the final button push,
whatever form that takes in a given gambling machine, it's
already been figured out by the.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Machine, right, And so I sketched out this scenario to
illustrate a concept in psychology called the illusion of control.
So the illusion of control refers to a common type
of cognitive illusion, a mistaken pattern of reasoning in which
we overestimate the extent to which our choices or behavior
(05:59):
can effect outcomes, even totally random or uncontrollable outcomes. So,
according to illusion of control theory, either we think we
have control over an outcome when we have no control
at all, or we do have some control, but we
think we have more control than we actually do. So
(06:20):
today we're kicking off a series where we're going to
take a look at research on the illusion of control,
to what extent the concept is a valid description of
how we think, what the evidence for it is, some
criticisms of the concept, how it works in theory and practice,
and why we might experience it to the extent that
we do.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, and it's going to be interesting to talk about
this and think about it, especially in a world that
can very often feel rather out of our control, and
that as well discuss plays into the whole scenario.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
That's right. But before we dive into the research on
this subject, I thought it would be good to kick
off with some just classic examples that we can think
of from day to day life stuff. You don't even
need an experiment to see. You can just you know,
it happens to us all the time we do it.
You already mentioned Rob the idea of lucky rituals that
people put in place to help steer the outcome of
(07:13):
a public event on which the ritual has no rational
reason to have any influence. So whether your football team
wins that, you know, does that depend on whether you're
wearing your lucky shirt. And people might participate in lucky
rituals like this for a number of different reasons. Not
all of those reasons would be a genuine expectation that
(07:34):
it will help influence the outcome of the event. But
to the extent that someone does feel it will actually
change the probability of you getting the outcome you want,
that would be an example of the illusion of control.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, yeah, because sometimes these activities, you know, various lucky items.
Sometimes it's probably more in the fun category than anything.
You know, you wear your lucky scarf to go enjoy
a football game other football fans. You know, yeah, it's
just a fun thing to.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Do, or just to regulate your own emotions. Like it
might be literally functional, but operating on the self instead
of on the external world.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah. Yeah, and as always, you know, to what degree
does something become maladaptive or a hindrance. I mean, you
do hear cases of Okay, someone's wearing their their lucky
shirt to a game. Okay, fair, someone's wearing their lucky
underwear to a game. Fair, Someone's wearing their lucky underwear
to this game and they wore it to last game
(08:31):
and hasn't been washed since last game. You hear about
cases like that as well. And I don't know, I
think maybe in some of those cases there's another discussion
to have there, But I don't know. Sports and their rituals.
There's a lot going on here.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yeah, that's the version that's truly maladaptive.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Now other times, you know, I think we shouldn't dismiss
the importance of religious faith in all of this, particularly
regarding amulets. Various traditions, various religions out there have some
sort of an amulant tradition, some sort of essentially a
lucky charm tradition, be it a crucifix or a small
statue of a deity that you may carry around with
(09:09):
you and that may be used casually or you know,
very devotedly. There are different approaches to that as well.
There's all spectrum in that area of religious faith as well. Well.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, and I'd say that might well be one of
those things that is literally efficacious in some way. Maybe
not in the sense of changing the outcome of a
game or something, but it does change something about you
and is helpful in that way.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And then there's the notion that a lot of times
the addition of a lucky totem or a lucky practice
of some sort very often does not necessarily induce added
cost or burden. You know, even if we're mostly dismissive
of the idea that said item or said activity will
enhance our luck or will make some sort of experience
(09:59):
you know, passes buy with more ease. And even if
we're not we don't have a huge investment in that idea.
It kind of comes down to, well, why not, right,
is it going to hurt? I might as well have
the amulet on me. Maybe it will help if there's
a one percent chance it helps, great, because all it
is just setting in my pocket.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Right and you know, I plan to get into this
more in one of the later episodes in the series,
maybe in part two. But there is a question of
to the extent that we experience an illusion of control,
why do we experience one? Are there ways in which
it might actually be beneficial to human life even if
it's generating false beliefs?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah? I mean we kind of get into that basic
area of like, yeah, and it makes life a little easier,
and it's not hurting you, it's not hurting other people,
then why not?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Okay? I want to mention another example from everyday life.
This one comes up a lot when people think about
illusion of control. The closed door button on an elevator.
Does that button actually do anything? I think this example
actually has two levels of possible illusion of control. The
first one and we can quibble with whether this counts
(11:05):
as illusion of control or not. But the first level
is the question of whether the closed door button actually
closes the door. I was reading some articles about this
and was getting some contradictory conclusions from them, but like
according to there was an article in the New York
Times that cited some people in the elevator industry who
says who say that in most cases the button actually
(11:29):
does not change how fast the door closes. Maybe it
does in some percentage of elevators, but in the majority,
at least within the United States, it doesn't. I was
reading in another article that lifts in the UK are
more likely to have a fully functional closed door button
that does accelerate how fast the door shut. Elevators in
the US most of the time close on a timer,
(11:51):
and even when the closed door button is functional, it
probably works on a delay from when you press it
instead of immediately, So it's really questionable how much faster,
if at all, the doors will close after the button
is pressed. So I think the answer is not totally
clear on how often the closed door button does anything
in the States, but many people consider these buttons in
(12:13):
the US just a placebo. It does nothing except maybe
makes the passengers feel better.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Sometimes I feel like the closed door button exists mostly
to enhance the awkwardness of reaching for the open door button.
When someone tries to catch the elevator behind you one
of the doors close closing, will they correctly assume that
you were trying to help them, or will they think
that you were desperately trying to keep them from boarding
the elevator Like close faster. No one else on this
elevator with.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Me that's a good point. Now, on the other hand,
I think you could make a good case that the
closed door button shouldn't count as illusion of control because
there is genuine ambiguity about whether it does something or not, Like,
people really don't have information that should tell them whether
or not it works, and there's a reasonable assumption that
it should work. So pressing it is even whether or
(13:01):
not it works because you have a reasonable expectation that
it would.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, it says it works. You're just doing what the
button is inviting you to.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Do, exactly. But there's the second level of door closed
button that I think is definitely illusion of control, which
is have you ever seen somebody who's in a hurry
they get in an elevator, they not only press the button,
which may or may not work, they press the button
after watching somebody else press it already, like, oh, the
other guy didn't press it, right, I need to press
(13:31):
it to make sure it'll work.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimes you get on board an
elevator and there's this moment of uncertainty did the other
person press it? You didn't see them press it, you
would maybe assume they did, and it might be a
little awkward if you press it now, because then you're
saying like, I'm not sure you did this right, I'm
not sure you did it. I'm going to press it,
but yeah, if you see them do it, that is
an extra level of social awkwardness right there. And I
(13:58):
guess you're leaning into the idea that, Okay, if I
press it more then it'll be more likely.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
To comply exactly. Yeah, maybe there is reasoning of that sort,
like I wonder if button presses are cumulative.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah. I often fall into this as well. I mean,
I'll do this thing where I go to use the
clicker to lock the car, and I won't press it once.
I'll press it two or three times, which confounds members
of my family when I do this, But for some reason,
like it just feels like three is more certain, even
though there's no cumulative effect there. There's not like, Okay,
(14:33):
if you press it three times to lock, you have
to press it three times to unlock it, which I
don't know. I'd kind of like that feature personally, but
that's just not how it works. One click should do it,
but my mind thinks additional clicks would be necessary.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Triples is best. Then you know it's safe.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
That's true, but it's not true. It's just one of
those things we do. Another thing, another like clear example
of this one that I think a lot of us
encounter rather frequent, and another potential placebo button is the
crosswalk button, and a lot of the same situations apply here.
You know, you get up there to the crosswalk, there's
(15:09):
someone else already standing there. You assume they pressed it already,
but you're gonna press it as well, or you're waiting
on it. Seems to be taking forever. You know it's
been pressed, you've pressed it once, Maybe press it two
or three more times to let it know that you
mean business. You need to get across the street, Throw
up the red light, throw up the little green walk
in or white or light up walking man.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Also, as with the elevator button, there's legitimate question over
whether the button does anything or not.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That's right. I was looking into this a little bit,
and the broad answer on whether the cross button works
at all seems to be a resounding. It depends so
different countries, different city traffic systems, They're gonna have the
button function differently. Sometimes it actually speeds up crossings, other
times it doesn't. But what do we do? We push
(15:57):
it anyway, And part of that is again, standing there,
you probably don't have anything else to do, Push it
a few more times and see if it works.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
As we already established, sometimes it's just fun to push
a button.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, I mean, you're in a situation where you either
have no control or you realize you have a limited
amount of control. What can you do. You can't get
out there and stop cars, you can't stop traffic, but
you can press the button again and again, and it
feels like at least you're doing something now. The illusion
(16:35):
of control also applies to situations in which we know
experience anxiety due to perceived lack of control. And one
of these, and I can relate to this a bit,
is flying. Two examples I've read about with this scenario.
Or of course, there's of course pre enduring flight routines.
Many of these are so slight that we might not
even think about them as being pre flight rituals having
(16:58):
to do with an illusion of control. The examples given
in the Air Travel Design Guide include things like wearing
comfy clothing or brushing on one's teeth before a flight.
I don't know, I those just sound like good things
to do before a long flight.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, but they also controlling an outcome. I mean that
just seems like that's what you do to feel good.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, But I mean, I guess, and I can relate
to this a bit. It's like, maybe, like feeling good
is that thing you have control over, and so maybe
you've become more indulgent of those in a way to
sort of, you know, to make something that can be
uncomfortable more comfortable, which is just obviously you want to
do that. But also it's like so many things are
out of my control here, but the exact headpillow have
(17:41):
I have is in my control. The exact playlist I
download ahead of time is in my control. How you
know which movie I downloaded my phone prior to the flight,
that's within my control. I will do that, and I'll
put a lot of effort into.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
That, and maybe from all of that effort at control,
there could be some conceptual creep where actually it makes
you feel like the plane is less likely to crash.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah. I mean, and I don't even know if necessarily
everyone's mind directly goes there, you know, but it's like,
you know, you're you're dealing with one thing that they
When I was reading this ear Travel Design Guide website
that they pointed out, you know, it's like there's a
lot going on when you fly. Obviously, you know you're
you're traveling, your your your your circadian rhythms are are interrupted,
(18:23):
you may eat lunch three times in a given day,
that sort of thing, and then there are all these
other constraints. So there's a lot going on in the
mind and in the body. They also cite gamification as
a as a way that we interact with this illusion
of control. I found this bit interesting. This is a quote.
The airport is a unique type of architectural typology where
(18:45):
the spaces are subdivided and arranged to usher large groups
of people to move uni directionally. This encourages people to
develop strategies to game the system and to feel competitive
with other passengers moving through the airport.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Oh my god, that's right. I feel seen that. That's
like I do not I'm not normally a competitive walker,
like trying to get ahead of people walking, you know,
around me on the sidewalk. The only scenario in which
I catch myself doing that is at the airport, and
I want, yeah, that may be right. That it's like,
because it's funnel, you know, structured to have everybody moving
(19:20):
in the same direction, and it's so yeah, controlled like that.
It's some for some reason, makes you feel like I've
got to get in front of this this guy here,
you know, I've got Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So it's interesting to think about it from a design
standpoint where a lot of control needs to be taken
away from people going through this system, but you also
need to give them a sense of control, control over
little things, and and also realize that there's going to
be this illusion of control in place as well. But
you have another example to to to bring up here,
(19:53):
and this one is even more fun than flying. Oh.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
I wonder if you had the same experience. So I
was thinking back to childhood, and this may be an
embarrassing admission, but I'm thinking about the illusory functionality of
objectively non responsive video game controls. A couple of examples here.
I am at the Pizza Hut. I'm a little kid.
I desperately want to play the Neogo machine or the
(20:18):
X Men Arcade cabinet, but I have no quarters, so
I can't play. But while these machines are idle, there
is a kind of pre recorded gameplay demo that loops
on the screen, so it looks like somebody's playing. You know,
the characters are walking around fighting the bad guys and stuff,
and according to vague memories, I can't be sure I'm
right about this, but I think I would sometimes go
(20:41):
up to the machine and falsely believe that I was
maybe somewhat partially controlling the gameplay in this demo by
moving the joystick around without putting money in. Or maybe
what I'm remembering is that I would stare at the
machine while the demo's going, and I would not be
touching it, but I would be imagining that this were possible.
(21:03):
Another variation is a trick. Sometimes I think people would
play on their little siblings with home video game consoles,
so instead of fighting over whose turn it is to
play Mario, maybe the big sister actually plays Mario and
gives the little sister another controller which is not plugged
in to make her think she's playing, while actually she's
(21:24):
just watching the big sister play on the screen and
pressing buttons that do nothing. I recall this happening around
me and being surprisingly convincing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I guess maybe's more convincing with some games than others,
But I remember I did this as well with arcade
games when I was a little kid, and arguably with
I mean X Men Arcade Cabinet. That was a pretty
great game. But on the other hand, you're probably better
off just thinking you were playing it. Looking back at
it from a modern standpoint.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I really liked being Colossus and doing the roar.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Oh yeah, the yeah, it's funny. I had an experience
with just this the other day. We were out to
eat at a place that had arcade machines and they
were old arcade machines, and my son and one of
his friends and my son's eleven. Now, they went up
to these machines and I hadn't given them any quarters,
(22:18):
and I think I should give them some quarters so
they can play these machines. But they're over there moving
the sticks around, watching the screen, and I was like, oh,
I think they're just pretending to play.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And then I was like, I think maybe they're a
little too old to be doing that. And then I
asked them, do you guys want some real quarters? They're like, oh,
these machines are free, so it was a non issue.
But yeah, yeah, the reaches, you reach a point where
you outgrow it for sure, where You don't just want
to watch the games. You don't just want to watch
other people play these games. You want to get in there,
(22:48):
even if you are going to fail miserably and just
have to sing more quarters in the thing.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I will pay the endless tax to be Colosses. Yeah. Wait,
what was your X Men Arcade game character?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Oh? You know, oftentimes when I would play, there were
like a lot of people, so it's like whoever you
could get. But you know, obviously Colossus will Cyclops was
pretty great. He had the ibam attack, you know, that
would really tear up the screen.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
I remember Colossus was my first pick and night Crawler
was my second.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Oh yeah, he had a good attack as well. I
mean really, I would just be happy. I was happy
to be playing the X Men Arcade game.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
All right, Well, I think maybe we should talk about
some of the research history on the illusion of control,
some of the papers that have explored this topic in
the past. And though this phenomenon had been I think
noticed previously in a variety of ways. It gets the
name illusion of control from important research by the American
(23:43):
psychologist Ellen J. Langer, who published a paper in nineteen
seventy five called the Illusion of Control in the Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Langer was born in nineteen forty seven. She's also known
for her work on aging and mindfulness theory. I also
want to call out that she was a series consultant
on a BBC series title The Young Ones. But this
is not the classic comedy series, but rather a documentary
that explored reminiscence therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I'm not familiar either way. What's the comedy series?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Oh, the Young Ones? Oh? This is a classic British
comedy series about these young men living in a like
a dormitory house type situation. Yeah, and they would also
have musical guests on the show, like Motorhead was on
one of the episodes.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, so yeah, classic classic series. I'm sure it may
have come up in passing on Weird House Cinema before,
but I have a feeling in the future we'll probably
touch on some films on Weird House Cinema that include
actors from that show. All right, But The Young Ones
a series that she was associated This is a documentary
series that came like decades later.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Okay, okay. But in the nineteen seventy five paper The
Illusion of Control, Langer defined the phenomenon more narrowly than
we've been talking about. She defined the illusion of control
as quote, an expectancy of a personal success probability inappropriately
higher than the objective probability would warrant. So I'm not
(25:14):
going to do a detailed breakdown of Langer's full paper here,
because there are like six experiments total a lot of
variables being tested, but I'll summarize the main idea and
a couple of highlights that stuck out to me. So
her intro mentions a bunch of different reasons for thinking that,
in her words, quote, while people may pay lip service
(25:35):
to the concept of chance, they behave as though chance
events are subject to control. And she produces a lot
of examples given to provide prima facie evidence of this
idea before the experiments are carried out. And one of
these examples that I thought was interesting was a sociological
observation of how people treat dice when gambling. She mentioned
(26:00):
particularly behavior observed by Hinslin in nineteen sixty seven. So
the idea is, if you watch people playing a dice
based game, maybe you're in a casino in Vegas again,
and you go up to a craps table. Whatever their
true beliefs about chance or skill being involved in this game,
and it is a game of chance, their externally visible
(26:23):
behavior implies that they think they have some degree of
control over the numbers they roll with the dice. Examples
here would include that people tend to roll dice more
softly if they want to roll low numbers, and throw
the dice hard if they want to roll high numbers.
They appear to concentrate in preparation for the dice throw
(26:45):
the same way a person would concentrate before like doing
a skill based throw, like an aimed throw if they're
playing darts or something. And this belief in dice rolls
as a skilled activity also seem to be present and
observers because other people at the table would tend to
bet with a person who appeared to be exerting more
(27:07):
control in this way.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Oh that's fascinating, you know, you know, I don't gamble
with the dice, but I do throw some D twenties
pretty much every week in Dungeons and Dragons, and I
know that I do catch myself. I hadn't really thought
about it before, but like, if I'm rolling especially an
important D twenty I'm gonna I'm gonna put a little
time and effort into it, and there's gonna be a pause.
(27:30):
I'm gonna make sure my form is right. I'm gonna
make sure I get an appropriate clatter, you know. From that,
From that that twenty as I give it a roll.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
I do exactly the same thing, and I it feels
like I can roll the dice better or worse. I
know that I can't.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, I'm still gonna get a natural one here and there,
but but it feels better for some reason.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And to be fair, dice rolls in reality are probably
not perfectly random, like I think. I've read about gambling
cheats who with a lot of training claim that they
can learn ways to hold or toss the dice so
as to increase the chances of getting the role they want.
I think, especially if they do things you're not allowed
to do, like sliding the dice on the velvet instead
(28:13):
of actually throlling it, throwing them so they tumble. But anyway,
for the vast, vast majority of regular gamblers, this is
not the case. People cannot do this most for the
most part, and dice can be treated as effectively random
if they weren't effectively, random casinos would not use them.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Anyway. To come back to Langer's paper from seventy five,
so to test for an illusion of control, which she hypothesized,
she did six experiments in which chance based games had
various elements that we would associate with skill based games
introduced and this was her idea. It was that if
(29:03):
you make a game feel like it is skill based
even though it's clearly not, people will be confused into
thinking that they have control over outcomes that they actually don't.
For one example, one variable that is explored in this
paper is the variable of competition. If you are competing
(29:25):
against an opponent in a skill based game, the ability
of your opponent determines your likelihood of winning. Therefore, if
you're placing bets on whether or not you're gonna win,
how much you bet will in part depend on how
good your opponent is at the game. So you know,
if you're playing chess against a chess pro, you're probably
gonna bet less or maybe bet nothing. If you're playing
(29:48):
chess against somebody you perceive as worse than you at chess,
you will probably bet more. Of course, if it's a
purely chance based game, there is no relevant skill variable.
So if you're offered the chance to bet on outcomes,
your betting behavior should be based on something else, maybe
social factors, maybe just baseline appetite for risk, maybe a
(30:09):
desire to be seen by others as taking risks, etc.
It should be based on something other than your perception
of whether you're likely to win based on how good
your opponent is. That doesn't make any difference in a
chance based game. So in the first experiment described in
the study, Langer had people play a purely chance based
(30:29):
card game. The game was high card draw between two players.
No skill involved, pure luck of the draw. You pick
a card out of the deck. Is your card higher
than the other person's. Is there any room in looking
at that game to think I'm better than other people
at this? There shouldn't be. But the independent variable manipulated
(30:51):
by the experimenters here was the behavior and appearance of
your opponent. Do they seem confident and self assured or
do they seem awkward and nervous and prepared to lose?
In other words, are you playing against somebody who feels
like a winner or not? And remember, there's no logical
(31:12):
reason anybody should be a winner at this game. There's
zero skill involved, and yet the experiment did find that
people were willing to bet significantly more against a competitor
who seemed awkward and nervous than they were against a
competitor who seemed outgoing and confident. Now, I think this
is a really interesting result, but it's important to note
(31:33):
the limitations of this experimental design, and Langer herself flags
some of these limitations in the paper, so they didn't
go unnoticed by the authors here. So it seems like this.
It seems likely that this result could be caused by
a mistaken perception that skill or control would somehow factor
(31:53):
into this random game, But you can't be sure that's
the cause guiding the differences in how people bet. Maybe
other variables are operating here in response to the behavior
and appearance of the competitor. Maybe they have to do
with how the subject wants to be perceived in terms
of taking risks or not. Who knows. There could be
(32:14):
other things at work here. So that's the competition element,
which Langer concludes could make a chance based game have
illusory qualities of a skill based game. Other elements like
this explored in the paper are choice. So the idea
is if you give people a choice over, say, which
lottery ticket they receive. Of course it makes no difference
(32:36):
in the probability of winning, it increases their feeling of
the likelihood of winning, though with the choice element in particular.
There's a study I came across from twenty twenty one.
I might get into this more in the second episode,
but that study undercuts specifically the choice variable in particular,
So whether or not choice has this effect is up
(32:59):
for debate. But other ones explored in this paper are
familiarity with the game or with elements of the game.
So familiarity would be associated with a better chance of
winning a skill based game. Right, if you've played the
game before, you're probably better at it. You're more likely
to win. In a chance game, it doesn't matter. But
the study found that familiarity made people more confident in
(33:20):
their ability to win.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Okay, I mean I could see where like if you
know that what the odds are, even if you know
the odds are slim, like you do the math, You're like,
all right, I have a five percent chance of pulling
the right card. You know you could Still there's still
plenty of room in the human psyche to lean into
that and think I've got a five percent shot. That's
that's a non zero percent chance of winning this game.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Well, and there are games that have that are largely
determined by chance, but also have skill elements where familiarity
can make a big difference. Like I would say familiarity
with playing poker probably makes a big difference in how
well you do, because how well you do in poker
is a mix of chance and skill. You know, it's
the chance of what cards you draw, but also the
(34:05):
skill of like your betting strategy and all that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, I guess it also comes down to, like, what
does it mean to lose in a given game. I
haven't played much in the way of poker, but it's
my understanding like a game like poker gambling games where
actual money of any value is involved, losing just sucks.
There's no fun in losing. If you're losing at the game,
you're not having a good time. Whereas, and certainly you
can take that attitude, unfortunately into any gaming scenario. But
(34:31):
if you're doing it right, losing or rolling poorly, whatever
the exact form this takes in say, Dungeons and Dragons
is not necessarily bad, it can be a great moment
for character development, storytelling, and so forth. Likewise, just for
fun games like I'll play a bit of this little
phone game called Marvel Snap. It's pretty fun. You're not
(34:54):
betting any real money on it, and sometimes like losing.
Sometimes losing is like earlier, but other times it's amusing
to see how the other person beats you. And then
sometimes you know, you know, okay, I've got a very
slim chance of pulling this combo off or you know
this real hail Mary maneuver to use a sports term,
But sometimes you go for it because you don't have
(35:15):
money on the line. It's not the end of the world.
If you lose, you're likely to lose, but if there's
a small chance you're going to pull off something amazing,
you go for it. And you do that in games
like Dungeons and Dragons as well.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
That's right, and this highlights that, I mean, a big
thing about studying games is that there are different reasons
people play games, and not all games are just about winning.
I think one reason that games like this, if you're
going to study them in terms of trying to find
people's real motivation to win, you need things like cash prizes,
(35:48):
because that makes the winning condition really meaningful. Yeah, because yeah,
if there's not money involved, I'm just like, I don't know,
it's fun to just play a weird game and lose
and not know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I mean, where a game like high card draw, it's
only going to be interesting if there's money involved.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
In missum exactly. But anyway, coming back, so, this study
found in its experiments that familiarity with a game, even
a game purely of chance, where familiarity would actually not
make any difference at all, people still seem to behave
as if they thought it made a difference. Another variable
looked at in these experiments was the subject's level of involvement.
(36:26):
You know, how involved or hands on are you with
the process that decides the winner. So, in general, this
original nineteen seventy five paper found that, yes, experiments do
find that adding in elements that superficially remind people of
skill based games increases the illusion of control. And the
(36:47):
research did not stop there. There have been many, many
studies on the illusion of control in the decade since
this paper from nineteen seventy five. There have been sort
of three major branches of investigatory methods to look into
the evidence for the illusion of control and to understand
what variables influence when and the extent to which it occurs.
(37:10):
There's also been some criticism of the idea and maybe
looking at different theoretical ways to make sense of the
results of these kinds of experiments. And so I think
maybe in the next episode we're going to talk a
bit more about the research history, talk about what some
variables are that determine when people experience an illusion of control,
(37:30):
and look at criticisms of the concept.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
All right, so join us next time as we'll continue
this look at the illusion of control. In the meantime,
we'd love to hear from everyone out there, because you know,
we've touched on some very basic ideas about human nature
here and specific examples of gameplay and gambling and so forth,
and so I know you're gonna have a lot of
(37:55):
thoughts and we'd love to hear from you, so write in.
We'll have that email address here at the end of
the oppis a couple other ways to interact with the show.
I haven't no think I've mentioned these recently, but if
you are on the Facebook, there is a Facebook group
for stuff to Blow your mind. It is the stuff
to Blow your Mind discussion module. You just go there.
You ask to be admitted and if I think you
have to answer a question, that's a very easy one
(38:17):
you should be able to get if you listen to
the show. Also, there is a discord server room. What
have you for, stuff to blow your mind? If you
want to join that, email us and we'll send you
the link. It's that simple. And let's see. What else
do we mention? Oh? Yeah, thanks to everyone out there
who jumped in and give us a nice rating and
(38:38):
review on the various places where you can do that,
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And likewise, if you listen to the show on an
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Speaker 3 (38:58):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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