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Illusion of Control: Detecting Response-Outcome Independence in Analytic but Not in Naturalistic Conditions
Abstract
Experiments in which subjects are asked to analytically assess response-outcome relationships have frequently yielded accurate judgments of response-outcome independence, but more naturalistically set experiments in which subjects are instructed to obtain the outcome have frequently yielded illusions of control The present research tested the hypothesis that a differential probability of responding p(R), between these two traditions could be at the basis of these different results Subjects received response-independent outcomes and were instructed either to obtain the outcome (naturalistic condition) or to behave scientifically in order to find out how much control over the outcome was possible (analytic condition) Subjects in the naturalistic condition tended to respond at almost every opportunity and developed a strong illusion of control Subjects in the analytic condition maintained their p(R) at a point close to 5 and made accurate judgments of control The illusion of control observed in the naturalistic condition appears to be a collateral effect of a high tendency to respond in subjects who are trying to obtain an outcome, this tendency to respond prevents them from learning that the outcome would have occurred with the same probability if they had not responded
... It is important to note that in experiments in which the behavior of the participant is the potential cause of the outcome (i.e., experiments on the illusion of control), one degree of freedom is left to the participant, who may act with more or less frequency (see, e.g., Hannah & Beneteau, 2009;Matute, 1996). Thus, because the probability with which the potential cause occurs is one of the critical variables in the development of the illusion, it follows that, in situations in which the participant is free to act frequently or rarely, then the participant might be biasing the actual contingency to which he or she is exposed. ...
... Thus, because the probability with which the potential cause occurs is one of the critical variables in the development of the illusion, it follows that, in situations in which the participant is free to act frequently or rarely, then the participant might be biasing the actual contingency to which he or she is exposed. Thus, the probability with which the participant acts can mediate many of these overestimation effects (Blanco et al., 2011;Matute, 1996;Yarritu et al., 2014). Indeed, it has been suggested that most of the experiments that have reported accurate detection of null contingencies, such as, for example, Shanks and Dickinson's (1987) and Wasserman's (1990) studies, included instructions that asked their participants to respond in no more than 50% of the trials, whereas experiments reporting overestimations of control omitted this instruction and participants generally tended to respond with a higher probability in their attempt to obtain the desired outcomes (Matute, 1996;Yarritu et al., 2014). ...
... Thus, the probability with which the participant acts can mediate many of these overestimation effects (Blanco et al., 2011;Matute, 1996;Yarritu et al., 2014). Indeed, it has been suggested that most of the experiments that have reported accurate detection of null contingencies, such as, for example, Shanks and Dickinson's (1987) and Wasserman's (1990) studies, included instructions that asked their participants to respond in no more than 50% of the trials, whereas experiments reporting overestimations of control omitted this instruction and participants generally tended to respond with a higher probability in their attempt to obtain the desired outcomes (Matute, 1996;Yarritu et al., 2014). ...
Many experiments have shown that humans and other animals can detect contingency between events accurately. This learning is used to make predictions and to infer causal relationships, both of which are critical for survival. Under certain conditions, however, people tend to overestimate a null contingency. We argue that a successful theory of contingency learning should explain both results. The main purpose of the present review is to assess whether cue-outcome associations might provide the common underlying mechanism that would allow us to explain both accurate and biased contingency learning. In addition, we discuss whether associations can also account for causal learning. After providing a brief description on both accurate and biased contingency judgments, we elaborate on the main predictions of associative models and describe some supporting evidence. Then, we discuss a number of findings in the literature that, although conducted with a different purpose and in different areas of research, can also be regarded as supportive of the associative framework. Finally, we discuss some problems with the associative view and discuss some alternative proposals as well as some of the areas of current debate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... However, the requirement for careful experimental control means that the basic experimental findings have never been tested outside the laboratory. This raises key methodological concerns around external and ecological validity, of generalizability from one very specific control situation to the whole of life [17] and of the difference between behavior instructed in the laboratory and that occurring naturally in the realworld [18]. Such basic methodological critiques of perceived control research are well acknowledged [19] and have limited the potential for this area of research to result in interventions for applied settings, although laboratory based interventions have begun to be tested [20]. ...
... Up until now, the basic experimental findings of illusory control have never been rigorously tested outside the laboratory. This has raised important methodological and theoretical concerns, in particular around external and ecological validity, of generalizability from one very specific control situation to the whole of life [17] and of the difference between behavior instructed in the laboratory and that occurring naturally in the real-world [18]. Such basic methodological critiques of perceived control research are well acknowledged in relation to depression [19] but not really discussed in the general health literature in which the concept of control is so frequently utilized. ...
... It is important to consider whether the experimental procedure was a valid test of the contingencies that we planned for participants to experience. This is because it has been acknowledged that changes in participant behavior can actually affect the contingencies they are exposed to [18,36,24]. Our concern here was missed trials. ...
Background:
Perceived control is strongly linked to healthy outcomes, mental healthiness, and psychological well-being. This is particularly important when people have little control over things that are happening to them. Perceived control studies have been performed extensively in laboratory settings and show that perceived control can be increased by experimental manipulations. Although these studies suggest that it may be possible to improve people's mental health by increasing their perceived control, there is very little evidence to date to suggest that perceived control can also be influenced in the real world.
Objective:
The first aim of this study was to test for evidence of a link between noncontrol situations and psychological well-being in the real world using a mobile phone app. The second and arguably more important aim of the study was to test whether a simple instructional intervention on the nature of alternative causes would enhance people's perceptions of their own control in these noncontrol situations.
Methods:
We implemented a behavioral action-outcome contingency judgment task using a mobile phone app. An opportunity sample of 106 healthy volunteers scoring low (n=56, no depression) or high (n=50, mild depression) on a depression scale participated. They were given no control over the occurrence of a low- or high-frequency stimulus that was embedded in everyday phone interactions during a typical day lasting 8 hours. The intervention involved instructions that either described a consistent alternative cause against which to assess their own control, or dynamic alternative causes of the outcome. Throughout the day, participants rated their own control over the stimulus using a quantitative judgment scale.
Results:
Participants with no evidence of depression overestimated their control, whereas those who were most depressed were more accurate in their control ratings. Instructions given to all participants about the nature of alternative causes significantly affected the pattern of perceived control ratings. Instructions describing discrete alternative causes enhanced perceived control for all participants, whereas dynamic alternative causes were linked to less perceived control.
Conclusions:
Perceptions of external causes are important to perceived control and can be used to enhance people's perceptions. Theoretically motivated interventions can be used to enhance perceived control using mobile phone apps. This is the first study to do so in a real-world setting.
... People can learn from other people and add new improvements to what previous participants did. This kind of process was called the ratchet effect (e.g., Tomasello, 1990;Tomasello, Savage-Rumbaugh, & Kruger, 1993) or cumulative cultural evolution (Boyd & Richerson, 1994, 1996Richerson & Boyd, 2005) and can be an important mechanism that leads to the richness of social practices that are characteristic of human cultures. ...
... Brown (1988, 1994), for example, suggested that the illusion of control and other biases toward the detection of causality protects people against situations that can potentially be a source of stress, depression, or discouragement. Moreover, the question of illusion of control has also been approached from the perspective of the psychology of learning (e.g., Blanco, 2017;Matute, 1996). This position is strongly supported by accumulating evidence that higher levels of activity of one participant are positively correlated with higher estimates of control in the context of noncontingent outcomes (Blanco & Matute, 2015;Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2009Matute, Vadillo, Vegas, & Blanco, 2007). ...
... Elucidation of the illusion of control that emphasizes the role of coincidences between behavior and environmental changes is an important step toward providing a basic background for understanding behavioral and learning mechanisms that are related to the origins of false beliefs (Blanco, 2017;Blanco et al., 2009Blanco et al., , 2011Blanco et al., , 2012Blanco et al., , 2013Matute, 1996;Matute et al., 2007). The present data support this approach to better understand the general notion of the illusion of control. ...
The notion of superstitious behavior can provide a basic background for understanding such notions as illusions and beliefs. The present study investigated the social mechanism of the transmission of superstitious behavior in an experiment that utilized participant replacement. The sample was composed of a total of 38 participants. Participants performed a task on a computer: they could click a colored rectangle using the mouse. When the rectangle was in a particular color, the participants received points independently of their behavior (variable time schedule). When the color of the rectangle was changed, no points were presented (extinction). Under an Individual Exposure condition, ten participants worked alone on the task. Other participants were exposed to the same experimental task under a Social Exposure condition, in which each participant first learned by observation and then worked on the task in a participant replacement (chain) procedure. The first participant in each chain in the Social Exposure condition was a confederate who worked on the task “superstitiously,” clicking the rectangle when points were presented. Superstitious responding was transmitted because of the behavior of the confederate. This also influenced estimates of personal control. These findings suggest that social learning can facilitate the acquisition and maintenance of superstitious behavior and the illusion of control. Our data also suggest that superstitious behavior and the illusion of control may involve similar learning principles.
... Related to experimental procedures and theoretical background, illusion of control is usually treated as a matter of judgment. People are asked to estimate the control they feel they have after exposure to a noncontingent task (Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2011;Fast, Gruenfeld, Sivanathan, & Galinsky, 2009;Matute, 1996). Superstitious behavior is investigated in the context of learning by reinforcement (Skinner, 1948): despite there being no relation between behavior and reinforcement, a standard manipulandum was available to subjects (a button, a computer keyboard etc.) and responses to this manipulandum were recorded when reinforcement was presented according to a preprogramed time schedule (Ono, 1987). ...
... Recently, Matute (1996), Hannah and Beneteau (2009), and Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo (2009 showed that a higher probability of response was associated with a higher estimate of control over trials with a in null contingency between response and reinforcement. Higher probability of responses, or "causes", can interact with the probability of outcomes, "effects", to generate illusion of control (Matute et al., 2015). ...
... In a similar way, the higher the probability of outcomes, the more probable illusion of control is (Allan & Jenkins, 1983;Buehner, Cheng, & Clifford, 2003). In Matute (1996), for example, participants in one group were instructed to try and obtain an outcome (naturalistic condition). The second group was instructed to behave scientifically and investigate how much control over an outcome could be achieved (analytical conditions). ...
The objective of this experiment was to study similarities between superstitious behavior and illusion of control. We used different motivational instructions to generate high and low rates of responding and exposed participants to noncontingent reinforcement in order to evaluate superstitious behavior and illusion of control. College students (n = 40) responded over three 10-min sessions in a computer-based free operant procedure that alternated signaled periods of noncontingent presentation of points (VT schedule) and periods in which the points were not presented (extinction, EXT). In one group of participants, points were the only reward; for the other group, instructions stated that points were later exchangeable for photocopy vouchers. We compared rates of responding and estimates of control. Points exchangeable for photocopy vouchers produced higher rates of responding and estimates of control. Frequency of response and estimates of control were positively correlated. It was concluded that motivational instructions influenced both rate of responding and judgment of control. Even when a high rate of responding was extended in time (two more sessions for each participant), judgments of control were biased by noncontingent reinforcement. Through direct comparison between superstitious behavior and illusion of control, we showed that behavioral dynamics can be important in studies of illusion of control.
... Thus, it has been argued that instead of, or perhaps in addition to, pre-existing biases being the main influencer of perceived control ratings, it is the processing of and learning about specific aspects of contingency experience (Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2011;Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2012;Blanco et al., 2009;Byrom, Msetfi, & Murphy, 2015;Msetfi, Wade, & Murphy, 2013) or the current motivational state of the participant (e.g., Baker, Msetfi, Hanley, & Murphy, 2011). For example, Matute (1996) has argued that rates of behaviour, affect the degree of control perceived. Although participants might be instructed to sample actions and non-actions, there are variations in behaviour. ...
... Those that either almost always responded or never responded were removed from the analysis; on average <15 % or >85 % of trials. This is important because outliers in response behaviour can significantly alter the contingencies experienced by the participant (Matute, 1996), and our hypothesis depends on the participants experienced contingency. This exclusion criteria have been used in previous work (Murphy & Msetfi, 2014). ...
Depression has been linked to weakened perceptions of control. The experimental evidence derives from tasks with exposure to stable action-outcome contingencies. One assumption has been that performance represents a general cognitive bias that might manifest itself by a global performance difference. Another view is that people have specific situational perceptions of control reflecting their recent actions and the contingencies to which they are currently experiencing. In an experiment with N = 179, participants acquired one of four action-outcome sequences (Constant or Variable). We measured how learning was reflected in ratings of control and probability of responding in relation to mood. In three experimental treatments, the overall contingency across training involved an average moderate degree of control (ΔP = 0.25), but differed in how control varied (Constant or one of two Variable treatments). A fourth, control treatment involved a Constant zero degree of control (ΔP = 0.00). Participants rated their control before, during and after each sequence, providing measures of pre-existing bias, ratings of control in specific situations and generalised control perceptions. Specific control ratings were only influenced by the contingency experience and not pre-existing bias. Higher scores on the Beck’s depression inventory were associated with weakened association between action and context ratings. Overall, these data suggest that human agency is related to rates of responding and that mood is related to a difference in sensitivity to the ratings of and responding to the context.
... Illusion of control is a natural phenomenon and has been demonstrated to occur in nonpsychiatric populations such as students (Langer 1975;Alloy and Abramson 1979;Wasserman et al. 1983;Matute 1996;Aeschleman et al. 2003;Msetfi et al. 2005) and people from the community (Alloy and Abramson 1979;Taylor and Brown 1988). However, illusion of control is a predominant characteristic in GD (Brevers et al. 2015;Lorains et al. 2014;Wiehler and Peters 2015). ...
... In another study, Matute (1996) noted that when individuals were asked to analyze the response-outcome relationship instead of just trying to produce an outcome (i.e., stopping the noise in the previous study), they frequently presented an accurate judgment of the response-outcome independence. Matute concluded that illusion of control was observed in the first condition as a "collateral effect of a high tendency to respond in individuals who are trying to obtain an outcome; this tendency to respond prevents them from learning that the outcome would have occurred with the same probability if they had not responded" (Matute 1996, p. 289). ...
Gambling Disorder (GD) is characterized by persistent betting even in face of accruing debts and psychosocial hardship. Gambling Disorder behavior has been linked to conditioning, cognitive distortions and superstitious behavior. Previous studies have demonstrated that during response-outcome analytical tests (ROAT), non-gambling individuals are precluded from response extinction when failure feedback is suppressed, and develop superstitious behaviors and illusion of control instead.
Gambling can be regarded as a ROAT paradigm in which disordered gamblers (DGs) fail to compute failure feedback; hence they do not perceive the independence between response and outcome.
In order to investigate early phenomena on response and outcome processing in DGs, we developed two short ROAT versions, one with a controllable outcome and one with an uncontrollable outcome, both with explicit failure feedback. Twenty DGs and twenty healthy controls were assessed using this novel paradigm. Compared to controls, DGs reported higher distress during the controllable ROAT, less self-confidence in the uncontrollable ROAT, and more random responses and less use of analytical strategies in both tests, evidencing potential deficits in cognitive control. In contrast to previous findings, DGs did not demonstrate more superstitious beliefs, or illusion of control, and were generally more skeptical than controls regarding the controllability of both ROAT versions. Taken together, our findings provide some support for deficits in cognitive control in GD that precede illusion of control and superstitious behaviors.
... The illusion of control (IOC) is a well-documented heuristic or bias that refers to a subjective over-estimation of control in situations involving individual action (Langer, 1975;Thompson et al., 1998). In formal operant learning theory, the IOC is similar to the notion of false contingency (Alloy & Abramson, 1979;Blanco et al., 2011;Matute, 1995Matute, , 1996Wasserman et al., 1993). This bias is also said to occur when people believe that the probability of outcomes resulting from their actions (P (O| R)) is greater than the objective probability. ...
... The IOC has been extensively studied in laboratory environments (e.g., Ejova et al., 2015;Matute, 1995Matute, , 1996Wohl & Enzle, 2002;Yarritu et al., 2014) and also in applied contexts. In laboratory research, much of the principal focus has been upon finding effective ways to capture the effect; understanding the role of individual differences, and whether there are situational factors that make the effect more likely to occur. ...
People who engage in gambling are known to hold erroneous views about the nature of gambling. One of the most commonly observed cognitive biases is the illusion of control, where people’s subjective appraisal of contingency between behavior and events is greater than the objective contingency. Such beliefs have been found to be strongest in problem gamblers and can lead to over-confidence in the ability to win money from gambling. A question, however, is whether such perceptions are (a) specific to gambling and whether gamblers display a tendency to over-estimate contingencies in everyday life and (b) if a tendency to endorse everyday illusion of control beliefs is related to specific gambling-related beliefs among those who gamble. Answers to these questions might provide insights into whether some people are potentially more vulnerable to beliefs that might have implications for gambling. An online sample of 788 adults completed a survey about simple everyday situations where people might attempt to exert control (e.g., pressing elevator buttons more often, throwing dice in games). The survey included a scale that captured everyday situations as well as established measures of illusion of control and superstition in gambling. The results showed that those who report greater control in everyday tasks scored higher on standardized measures of beliefs about chance and gambling-related cognitions relating to illusory control. Scores on both types of measures were higher in gamblers than non-gamblers. The findings suggest that gamblers may differ in how they generally perceive and respond to situations involving tasks largely dominated by chance or limited opportunities for genuine control.
... Benassi, 1996). In fact, instructions describing outcomes or asking for naturalistic or analytic strategies are relevant factors that increase the probability of responding and estimates of control both in trial and free operant procedures (Benvenuti, Toledo, Simões, & Bizarro, 2017;Matute, 1996). ...
... And regressions between raw judgments and p(A) yielded significant relations only under two p(O)s, with very small effects and slopes close to null. This is not consistent with previous reports conducted in similar conditions (e.g., Blanco et al., 2011;Matute, 1996), in which the higher the p(A) was, the more intense the judgment of control both in productive and preventive scenarios. However, in the current experiment, the fact that there were no significant differences in p(A) among groups, blocks or p(O) and the undermost regressions with the judgments of control prevent us to attribute differences in illusions to the proportion of actions. ...
Individuals interpret themselves as causal agents when executing an action to achieve an outcome, even when action and outcome are independent. How can illusion of control be managed? Once established, does it decay? This study aimed to analyze the effects of valence, probability of the outcome [p(O)] and probability of the actions performed by the participant [p(A)], on the magnitude of judgments of control and corresponding associative measures (including Rescorla–Wagner’s, Probabilistic Contrast, and Cheng’s Power Probabilistic Contrast models). A traffic light was presented on a computer screen to 81 participants who tried to control the green or red lights by pressing the spacebar, after instructions describing a productive or a preventive scenario. There were 4 blocks of 50 trials under all of 4 different p(O)s in random order (0.10, 0.30, 0.70, and 0.90). Judgments were assessed in a bidimensional scale. The 2 × 4 × 4 mixed experimental design was analyzed through General Linear Models, including factor group (between-subject valence), and block and p(O) (within subjects). There was a small effect of group and a large and direct effect of p(O) on judgments. Illusion was reported by 66% of the sample and was positive in the productive group. The oscillation of p(O) produced stronger illusions; decreasing p(O)s produced nil or negative illusions. Only Rescorla–Wagner’s could model causality properly. The reasons why p(A) and the other models could not generate significant results are discussed. The results help to comprehend the importance of keeping moderate illusions in productive and preventive scenarios.
... This makes the complete generative solution unlikely to be implemented by the brain (Eckstein et al., 2004), which explains why people often depart from statistically optimal predictions made by normative models (e.g., Waldmann and Walker, 2005; see also Blanco, Matute and Vadillo, 2011;Gershman, 2015). Interestingly, departures from normative predictions often arise in the form of illusions of control in which people behave superstitiously in the belief that they are controlling uncontrollable outcomes (Langer, 1975), such as those occurring when contrasting instrumental vs. observational learning (Waldmann & Hagmayer, 2005) and naturalistic vs. analytic contexts (Matute, 1996), or when experiencing imposed vs. chosen gambling outcomes (Kool, Gatez, & Botvinick, 2013). Generative models have difficulty accounting for such illusions while at the same time failing to address causal problems that human subjects easily solve (Sloman & Lagnado, 2015). ...
... Control beliefs develop early and are somewhat irrepressible: the need to be and feel in control is so strong that individuals would do whatever they can to re-establish control when it disappears or is taken away, including self-attributing unrelated events (Langer, 1975) or acting superstitiously in the belief that their action is accountable for uncontrollable outcomes (Blanco, Matute and Vadillo, 2011). Importantly, control beliefs would explain an enduring puzzle in causal reasoning, that is, why people show remarkable performance in causal inferences, which they often make effortlessly 50 and from very little data, and yet readily experience illusory control, whether in real-life uncontrollable situations (Matute, 1996) or in experimental settings with null contingency (Blanco, Matute and Vadillo, 2011). This relationship between illusory control and control beliefs is further corroborated by people's tendency to self-attribute positive outcomes when their perceived controllability of the environment is high (Harris and Osman, 2012). ...
Most people envision themselves as operant agents endowed with the capacity to bring about changes in the outside world. This ability to monitor one's own causal power has long been suggested to rest upon a specific model of causal inference, i.e., a model of how our actions causally relate to their consequences. What this model is and how it may explain departures from optimal inference, e.g., illusory control and self-attribution biases, are still conjecture. To address this question, we designed a series of novel experiments requiring participants to continuously monitor their causal influence over the task environment by discriminating changes that were caused by their own actions from changes that were not. Comparing different models of choice, we found that participants' behaviour was best explained by a model deriving the consequences of the forgone action from the current action that was taken and assuming relative divergence between both. Importantly, this model agrees with the intuitive way of construing causal power as "difference-making" in which causally efficacious actions are actions that make a difference to the world. We suggest that our model outperformed all competitors because it closely mirrors people's belief in their causal power - a belief that is well-suited to learning action-outcome associations in controllable environments. We speculate that this belief may be part of the reason why reflecting upon one's own causal power fundamentally differs from reasoning about external causes.
... Under these circumstances, people will often give a modest positive rating for the causal efficacy of the button, even if there is actually zero contingency between pressing the button and the light illuminating (i.e., the light is just as likely to illuminate if the button is pressed as if it is not: Alloy & Abramson, 1979;Matute, 1994Matute, , 1996Pronin, Wegner, McCarthy, & Rodriguez, 2006). This has been termed an illusion of causality (Matute et al, 2011), as people perceive a causal relationship where none exists. ...
... For example, the illusion is stronger when the outcome event is frequent (the outcome density effect, e.g. Allans & Jenkins, 1980), when the outcome is desired or people are instructed to obtain it (Langer, 1975;Matute, 1994Matute, , 1995, when people are thinking about the outcome at the time it occurs (Pronin et al., 2006), when people make a lot of button presses (Matute, 1996) or when the time between button presses is long (Msetfi et al.,, 2007). These studies cumulatively give some insight into the mechanisms by which the average person may be seduced by the apparent (but superstitious) contingency of their actions sometimes eliciting an outcome. ...
Superstitions are common, yet we have little understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that bring them about. This study used a laboratory‐based analogue for superstitious beliefs that involved people monitoring the relationship between undertaking an action (pressing a button) and an outcome occurring (a light illuminating). The task was arranged such that there was no objective contingency between pressing the button and the light illuminating – the light was just as likely to illuminate whether the button was pressed or not. Nevertheless, most people rated the causal relationship between the button press and the light illuminating to be moderately positive, demonstrating an illusion of causality. This study found that the magnitude of this illusion was predicted by people's level of endorsement of common superstitious beliefs (measured using a novel Superstitious Beliefs Questionnaire), but was not associated with mood variables or their self‐rated locus of control. This observation is consistent with a more general individual difference or bias to overweight conjunctive events over disjunctive events during causal reasoning in those with a propensity for superstitious beliefs.
... As of natural selection, a system that detects causal relations that sometimes result illusory might be more adaptive than an alternative system with such a high threshold for the detection of causal relations that often fails to detect relations that do exist (e.g., McKay and Dennett ). 2009 In addition, the illusion of control itself could be adaptive on its own (Langer ;Matute ;McKay and Dennett 197519962009Taylor and Brown ). If the illusion makes us remain active in our trying to obtain desired events, such as rain or fire 1988 or health, then, whenever we are uncertain about whether a relationship is really causal, it should be adaptive to maintain the illusion that our behavior is being useful so that we persist in trying to obtain the desired outcome. ...
... As of natural selection, a system that detects causal relations that sometimes result illusory might be more adaptive than an alternative system with such a high threshold for the detection of causal relations that often fails to detect relations that do exist (e.g., McKay and Dennett ). 2009 In addition, the illusion of control itself could be adaptive on its own (Langer ;Matute ;McKay and Dennett 197519962009Taylor and Brown ). If the illusion makes us remain active in our trying to obtain desired events, such as rain or fire 1988 or health, then, whenever we are uncertain about whether a relationship is really causal, it should be adaptive to maintain the illusion that our behavior is being useful so that we persist in trying to obtain the desired outcome. ...
Causal learning is the process by which people and animals gradually learn to predict the most probable effect for a given cause and to attribute the most probable cause for the events in their environment. Learning causal relationships between the events in our environment and between our own behavior and those events is critical for survival. From learning what causes fire (so that we could either produce or prevent the occurrence of fire at will) to learning what causes rain, what causes cancer, or what caused that particular silly accident that we had with the car a few days ago, both the history of humankind and our individual history are full of examples in which causal learning is crucial. But, as can be said for other forms of learning as well, causal learning is not free of errors. Systematic biases and errors are known to occur under certain conditions. One of such common biases is the illusion of control. The illusion of control can be defined as the belief that one’s behavior is the cause of a desired event that is actually independent of it. Illusions of control are an important factor in the development of superstitions. For instance, the superstitious belief that by dancing one can produce rain, is normally accompanied by the illusion of controlling rain.
... Though accepting the possibility of distributed ledger technologies, this paper still questions certain fundamental issues regarding this technology such as scalability, openness, standards, liability, transparency and security. The paper also raises questions on smart contract technology of blockchain networks like Ethereum because it is said that smart contract code is "only as good as the people who write them" and "if a mistake in the code gets exploited, there is no efficient way in which an attack or exploitation can be stopped" (Gatteschi et al., 2018;Luu et al., 2016;Matute, 1996;Tschorsch & Scheuermann, 2016;Xu, 2016;Blockgeeks, 2022). ...
... In order to achieve such, as there usually is no complete data about a given situation present, an organism needs to form subjective rather than objective conclusions on whether alterations of states are contingent responses to its own action (Presson and Benassi, 1996;Alloy and Abramson, 1982;Ajzen, 2002;Niv, 2009). As a result, individual differences in control-beliefs may stem from interactions of self-perceived agentic behavior and the evaluation of contingency of its consequences (Matute, 1996;Blanco et al., 2011;van Elk et al., 2015). As these individual differences in control expectation are implicated in a variety of psychiatric disorders such as depression (Golin et al., 1977;Alloy and Abramson, 1982) and may also pose as a trait to predetermine future episodes of such (Alloy and Clements, 1992;Baryshnikov et al., 2018), being able to induce a greater sense of control, is a key aspect of both, preventive and curative interventions (Wallston et al., 1987;Brown and Siegel, 1988;Ledrich and Gana, 2013;Alsawy et al., 2014;Gallagher et al., 2014;Hogendoorn et al., 2014). ...
Being able to control inner and environmental states is a basic need of living creatures. The perception of such control is based on the perceived ratio of outcome probabilities given the presence and the absence of agentic behavior. If an organism believes that options exist to change the probability of a given outcome, control perception (CP) may emerge. Nonetheless, regarding this model, not much is known about how the brain processes CP from this information. This study uses low-intensity transcranial focused ultrasound neuromodulation in a randomized-controlled double blind cross-over design to investigate the impact of the right inferior frontal gyrus of the lateral prefrontal cortex on this process. 39 healthy participants visited the laboratory twice (once in a sham, once in a neuromodulation condition) and rated their control perception regarding a classical control illusion task. EEG alpha and theta power density were analyzed in a hierarchical single trial-based mixed modeling approach. Results indicate that the litFUS neuromodulation changed the processing of stimulus probability without changing CP Furthermore, neuromodulation of the right lPFC was found to modulate mid-frontal theta by altering its relationship with self-reported effort and worrying. While these data indicate lateral prefrontal sensitivity to stimulus probability, no evidence emerged for the dependency of CP on this processing.
... In all conditions, participants' ratings roughly matched this probability, suggesting that they were sensitive to behavior-consequence contingencies (see also Wasserman et al., 1983). Other studies have shown that people are more likely to report causal relations between their behavior and consequences when the delay between behavior and consequence is shorter (e.g., Rudski, 2000;Shanks et al., 1989;Wasserman & Neunaber, 1986), when the perceived or actual value of the consequence is higher (e.g., Benvenuti et al., 2018) and when prior knowledge or instructions bias them in favor of reporting a causal relation (e.g., Blanco et al., 2020;Collins & Shank, 2002, 2006Matute, 1996). Collectively, the above findings suggest that behavior may sometimes appear to deviate from arranged behavior-consequence contingencies because of sources of bias (e.g., reinforcer magnitude, instructions delays between responses and reinforcers) rather than because subjects have failed to learn, or are insensitive to those contingencies. ...
Organisms may sometimes behave as if a contingency exists between behavior and consequences, even if this is not actually the case. Killeen (1978) suggested that such superstition occurs because of factors that bias subjects to behave "superstitiously" rather than because of failures of discrimination. We systematically replicated Killeen's experiment and compared contingency discrimination between different consequences. Six pigeons responded in a matching-to-sample procedure in which a response-independent or response-dependent stimulus change, food delivery, or blackout occurred. The pigeons reported whether the consequence was response dependent or response independent by choosing between two side keys. Discrimination was strongest after stimulus changes, weaker after blackouts, and weakest after food deliveries. These differences persisted even after additional training, suggesting asymmetries that may reflect differences in the disruptive effects of different consequences on remembering and/or behavioral mnemonics. Importantly, the pigeons were not biased to report response-dependent consequences unless that response was consistent with loca-tional biases; that is, they behaved "superstitiously" when there was a reason to be biased to do so. These findings corroborate Killeen's and demonstrate that behavior may deviate from contingencies not necessarily because subjects cannot discriminate those contingencies but because they are biased to behave otherwise.
... Heuristics are adaptive responses to uncertain conditions, but they sometimes result in biases, that is, systematic errors that occur in most people under certain conditions. Nonetheless, it is also noteworthy that cognitive biases can also lead sometimes to positive emotions such as a sense of control, and to the prevention of anxiety and depressed moods (see e.g., Alloy & Clements, 1992;Blanco, 2017;Langer, 1975;Matute, 1994Matute, , 1996Taylor & Brown, 1988). However, most often cognitive biases lead to wrong or sub-optimal decisions and can produce undesirable outcomes. ...
In this article, we review evidence of human cognitive biases present in artificial intelligence (AI), and discuss examples of how these biases influence AI and human-AI interactions. We argue that using the knowledge that psychology has already accumulated about biases during many years can advance our understanding of how these biases affect AI, as well as how we could minimize their impact.
... Thus, in active settings in which the P(C) depends on the participants' P(R), a very useful strategy to reduce the illusion would be to teach participants that, in order to assess causal relations, they need to test both what happens when they respond and when they do not respond. Indeed, it has been shown that providing explicit instructions to participants on how to respond efficiently reduces the causal illusion (e.g., Hannah & Beneteau, 2009;Matute, 1996). ...
The causality bias, or causal illusion, occurs when people believe that there is a causal relationship between events that are actually uncorrelated. This bias is associated with many problems in everyday life, including pseudoscience, stereotypes, prejudices, and ideological extremism. Some evidence-based educational interventions have been developed to reduce causal illusions. To the best of our knowledge, these interventions have included a bias induction phase prior to the training phase, but the role of this bias induction phase has not yet been investigated. The aim of the present research was to examine it. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (induction + training, training, and control, as a function of the phases they received before assessment). We evaluated their causal illusion using a standard contingency judgment task. In a null contingency scenario, the causal illusion was reduced in the training and induction-training groups as compared to the control group, suggesting that the intervention was effective regardless of whether or not the induction phase was included. In addition, in a positive contingency scenario, the induction + training group generated lower causal judgments than the control group, indicating that sometimes the induction phase may produce an increase in general skepticism. The raw data of this experiment are available at the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/k9nes/
... Gredeback et al., 2000;S.-F. Kao and E.A. Wasserman, 1993;E.J. Langer, 1975;Matute, 1995Matute, , 1996D.R. Shanks and A. Dickinson, 1988). Although human beings tend to think in terms of causal models, they possess an imperfect ability to design such models. ...
The attribution of causality, a central concept in human cognition theory, is the principal instrument for investigating functional links between events and phenomena. Although the links between causality and moral responsibility are commonly recognized, the scope of studies analysing the practical implications of causality attribution is minimal. This study examines the effect of causality perception on the desired distribution of the generic means of life by utilising thought experiment data collection methodology and non-parametric statistical analysis. The results indicate that i) causality perception affects the desired distribution, and ii) individuals show no tendency to modify their perception of causality.
... People often face learning environments in which they must gauge whether their behaviours trigger a desired outcome (e.g. an evening at the casino, or the earlier example of the elevator 'door close' button). In these settings, high rates of responding and high rates of positive outcomes are seen to fuel 'illusory correlations' or exhibit 'superstitious conditioning' (14,61), and within this framework, instructions that encouraged analytical thinking were effective at reducing the illusion of control (62), with relevance to the educational programs discussed above. Using this kind of procedure, people with gambling problems were seen to overestimate the effectiveness of a hypothetical new medication in treating an illness, witnessed over a series of observations (63). ...
E. J. Langer's paper, 'The illusion of control' (1975), showed that people act in ways that suggest they hold illusory beliefs in their ability to control the outcome of chance-determined games. This highly cited paper influenced the emerging field of gambling studies, and became a building block for cognitive approaches to problem gambling. Over time, this work has inspired therapeutic approaches based on cognitive restructuring, preventative programmes focused upon gambling myths and regulatory scrutiny of skill mechanics in modern gambling products. However, the psychological mechanisms underlying the 'illusion of control' remain elusive.
... Participants were asked to score on a scale the degree of control (e.g., ranging from 0 to 10, or from 0 to 100; Benvenuti et al., 2018;Blanco et al., 2009Blanco et al., , 2011. Some studies used bidimensional scales that ranged from -100 to 100: Positive values correspond to a positive illusion of control (judgments that the actions could produce the outcome), while negative values correspond to negative illusion (judgments that the actions could produce on the contrary of the outcome), and a null value indicating perception of response-outcome independence (Blanco & Matute, 2015;Matute, 1996;Simões, 2019;Simões et al., 2019). ...
Illusion of control (IOC) is a bias in the judgment of personal success with implications to learning theories and health policies; some important questions in the investigation of IOC may be related to traditional measures in the field, namely self-assessment using Likert scales about the sense of control. Statistical process control (SPC) and Shewhart charts are methods developed to monitor and control industrial processes, never applied in psychological studies before. The present two studies investigated the use of the technique of Shewhart charts in the analysis of IOC. The purpose was to explore the use of SPC and Shewhart charts in the analysis of data sequences from psychological experiments; the objective was to analyze the results of reaction time (RT) data sequences plotted in SPC charts, in comparison with self-assessment judgments from an IOC task. Participants were 63 undergraduate students (Study 1) and 103 mine workers (Study 2) instructed to try to control a traffic light on a computer by pressing or not the keyboard. Higher probabilities of the successful outcome generated judgments of illusion and shifts (due to cognitive activity) in the charts of RT; lower probabilities resulted in null illusion and RT presented a random and stable profile. Patterns for different groups emerged in Shewhart charts. SPC can contribute to the analysis of the behavior of sequences of data in psychological studies, so that the charts indicate changes and patterns not detected by traditional ANOVA and other linear models.
... As a result, traders will rarely be wrong in their choices and most decisions will be positively reinforced. Traders will therefore, often falsely, infer continency between their actions and positive outcomes, an effect which is known to be stronger when the probability of reinforcement is high (Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2011;Matute, 1996). As a result, traders may gain a sense of invincibility or perception that they cannot lose and this may contribute to greater risk taking, for example: speculation of large amounts in just one speculative coin; not planning for strategies to exit the market at the right time; or, moving money from a more balanced portfolio towards purchasing riskier altcoins. ...
Background and aims
Crypto-currency trading is a rapidly growing form of behaviour characterised by investing in highly volatile digital assets based largely on blockchain technology. In this paper, we review the particular structural characteristics of this activity and its potential to give rise to excessive or harmful behaviour including over-spending and compulsive checking. We note that there are some similarities between online sports betting and day trading, but also several important differences. These include the continuous 24-hour availability of trading, the global nature of the market, and the strong role of social media, social influence and non-balance sheet related events as determinants of price movements.
Methods
We review the specific psychological mechanisms that we propose to be particular risk factors for excessive crypto trading, including: over-estimations of the role of knowledge or skill, the fear of missing out (FOMO), preoccupation, and anticipated regret. The paper examines potential protective and educational strategies that might be used to prevent harm to inexperienced investors when this new activity expands to attract a greater percentage of retail or community investors.
Discussion and conclusions
The paper suggests the need for more specific research into the psychological effects of regular trading, individual differences and the nature of decision-making that protects people from harm, while allowing them to benefit from developments in blockchain technology and crypto-currency.
... Le joueur tentera aussi d'utiliser et de contrôler la chance des autres en demandant par exemple à un ami, à un buraliste ou toute autre personne qu'il considère chanceuse de jouer à sa place (Rothbaum et al., 1982;Wohl & Enzle, 2009). Il utilisera des rituels et des objets fétiches pour invoquer la chance (Matute, 1996). Ces différentes croyances erronées conduisent le joueur à percevoir la possibilité de gagner un gros lot comme plus probable qu'elle ne l'est en réalité (p. ...
Dans les jeux de hasard et d’argent (JHA), l’individu est exposé à au moins deux paradoxes. Le premier paradoxe est relatif au contrôle : d’une part, le joueur croit pouvoir contrôler le jeu en vue d’augmenter ses chances de gain (illusion de contrôle) et, d’autre part, il a tendance à perdre le contrôle de ses impulsions. Pour jouer sans risque, le joueur devrait donc jouer de manière contrôlée mais sans tenter de contrôler le jeu. Le second paradoxe réside dans le besoin, pour les opérateurs de jeu, de commercialiser les jeux tout en cherchant à prévenir les risques liés aux JHA. Ils doivent, notamment, aider le joueur à garder le contrôle de ses impulsions. A cette fin, les opérateurs de jeu utilisent des messages de prévention promouvant le Jeu Responsable (p. ex. « Pour que le jeu reste un jeu »). Selon nous, ces messages pourraient être ambigus et véhiculer des intentions promotionnelles au joueur, plutôt que préventives. Le but de cette thèse est alors d’examiner la compréhension des messages promouvant le Jeu Responsable. Nous étudions l’ambiguïté de leur contenu sémantique ainsi que l’influence de facteurs extrinsèques au message (i.e. les caractéristiques de la source et du récepteur) sur la compréhension du message. Quatre expériences ont été conduites en ligne auprès de 1438 participants. Les résultats de ces études montrent que les messages de prévention promouvant le Jeu Responsable agissent comme une injonction paradoxale : ils sont ambigus (Expérience 1) et peuvent être compris à la fois comme des messages de prévention et des messages de promotion du jeu (Expérience 2). En situation réelle de jeu, ces messages augmentent la prise de risque du joueur par rapport à des messages informatifs clairs (Expérience 3). De plus, nous avons montré que les messages de prévention, qu’ils soient clairs ou ambigus, sont mieux compris lorsque le message est perçu comme provenant du gouvernement plutôt que d’un opérateur de jeu et lorsque la crédibilité de la source est élevée. En revanche, les attitudes et la familiarité des joueurs avec le jeu ou leur niveau de risque de jeu pathologique n’influencent pas la compréhension du message dans notre échantillon (Expérience 4). Cette thèse montre que les messages actuellement utilisés par les opérateurs de jeu ne sont pas adaptés pour prévenir du jeu excessif. Notre travail contribue donc à l’amélioration des stratégies de communication préventive des opérateurs de jeux et des gouvernements.
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... 44 (2) There is also the semiotic model of perception, which explains AIR as illusions or perceptual distortions of a causal type that the individual fabricates to reduce the uncertainty of a past problem. 28,38 They are called illusions of control and are very common in believing subjects in the existence of the paranormal. 31 They differ from hallucinations in that they do not represent pathological behaviors in themselves. ...
Context
An Anomalous Information Reception (AIR) experiment was developed.
Objective
To statistically examine the occurrence of AIR in multiple experimental tests and explore their predictive psychological mechanisms.
Design
First, we investigated whether human beings could guess the positive or negative content from 30 randomly selected images that would be presented on a computer screen, one at a time. Ninety participants reported being mediums and another 90 claimed to be nonbelievers in the paranormal. The participants were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: (1) positive-relaxing environments, (2) neutral environments, and (3) negative-stimulating environments. Second, the prediction of successes recorded in the AIR experiment was tested using five Multivariable Multiaxial Suggestibility Inventory-2 (MMSI-2) scales that measured the altered state of consciousness (ASC) and suggestibility.
Results
The successes did not exceed the estimated chance. The only significant results revealed that mediums obtained a greater number of correct answers than the non-believing participants. Bayesian estimation also confirmed these results. In the same way, the altered states of consciousness and suggestibility negatively predicted 25.8% of successes in the AIR experiment.
Conclusions
Insufficient statistical evidence was obtained for AIR. The results raise doubts about previous theories on AIR. Further research is required. Nevertheless, mediums obtained more success answers than nonbelievers did. This means that the anomalous sheep-goat effect is also present in mediums and supports results obtained in previous studies.
... In recent years, there have also been attempts to manipulate and enhance perceived control experimentally [11,12]. For example, in experiments, instructions that influence the nature of information sampled in a given situation can increase perceptions of control [13,14]. One instance of this is that increasing levels of behaviour via instruction enables participants to experience high levels of action-outcome occurrences. ...
Video games are a source of entertainment for a wide population and have varied effects on well-being. The purpose of this article is to comprehensively examine game-play research to identify the factors that contribute to these disparate well-being outcomes and to highlight the potential positive effects. On the basis of existing literature, we argue that the effects of gaming on well-being are moderated by other variables, such as motivations for gaming and video-game characteristics. Specifically, the inclusion of social activity can benefit prosocial behaviors and affect the relationship between violent video games and aggression that some studies have demonstrated. Moreover, the research on the relationship between violent video games and aggression depends greatly on individual and sociocontextual variables outside of game play. The inclusion of physical activity in games can provide an improvement in physical health with high levels of enjoyment, potentially increasing adherence rates. Overall, following our review, we determined that the effects of gaming on well-being are moderated by and depend on the motivation for gaming, outside variables, the presence of violence, social interaction, and physical activity. Thus, we argue that there is potential for an “optimal gaming profile” that can be used in the future for both academic- and industry-related research.
... In recent years, there have also been attempts to manipulate and enhance perceived control experimentally [11,12]. For example, in experiments, instructions that influence the nature of information sampled in a given situation can increase perceptions of control [13,14]. One instance of this is that increasing levels of behaviour via instruction enables participants to experience high levels of action-outcome occurrences. ...
The relationship between the constructs of perceived control and symptoms of mood disorders has been demonstrated. The current study evaluates cultural values both as an individual difference moderating variable and as one of the mechanisms through which the association between perceived control and mood disturbances may operate. The hypotheses were examined with a sample of 615 participants recruited in Saudi Arabia. Participants completed measures of perceived control, individualism and collectivism, and symptoms of depression and bipolar disorder. In general, the results supported a model in which higher levels of perceived control promote a less symptomatic mood state. In most cases, cultural values positively mediated the relationship between perceived control and mood disturbance with lower symptom levels predicted. However, when the components of perceived control were examined separately, high perceived mastery together with highly individualistic values predicted higher levels of bipolar symptoms. In this sample, there was less evidence of cultural values moderating the control-mood disturbance relationship. Only one moderator relationship was identified, which showed low control linking to higher symptom levels only in those who disagreed with individualistic values. Overall, our data are in agreement with the notion that pre-existing cultural values have an important effect on mood disorder symptoms.
... Similarly, Eisenberger, Park, and Frank (1976) induced learned competence in children when challenged with controllable tasks. Additionally, it is also known that an uncontrollable task with positive feedback can also generate an illusion of control (Matute, 1994(Matute, , 1996 wherein successes obtained in uncontrollable situations resulted in an erroneous perception of control which in turn impeded the helplessness effects. It was argued that the positive feedback gave an illusion of mastery over the situation and thereby escaping the classic learned helplessness deficits. ...
Learned helplessness is often studied as a consequence of repetitive failure in a performance domain and is
... Consistent with the idea that a belief or perception of control is more potent than objective control, an illusion of control basically reflects the subjective judgment that an action-outcome causal relation exists when in fact there is no contingency. When probabilities of reward and action are high, the probability that both coincide is also high, hence affecting estimations of action-outcome causal relationships, which could contribute to the false belief that one has control (Alloy and Abramson, 1979;Matute, 1996;Orgaz et al., 2013). ...
Perceived control can be broadly defined as the belief in one’s ability to exert control over situations or events. It has long been known that perceived control is a major contributor toward mental and physical health as well as a strong predictor of achievements in life. However, one issue that limits a mechanistic understanding of perceived control is the heterogeneity of how the term is defined in models in psychology and neuroscience, and used in experimental settings across a wide spectrum of studies. Here, we propose a framework for studying perceived control by integrating the ideas from traditionally separate work on perceived control. Specifically, we discuss key properties of perceived control from a reward-based framework, including choice opportunity, instrumental contingency, and success/reward rate. We argue that these separate reward-related processes are integral to fostering an enhanced perception of control and influencing an individual’s behavior and well-being. We draw on select studies to elucidate how these reward-related elements are implicated separately and collectively in the investigation of perceived control. We highlight the role of dopamine within corticostriatal pathways shared by reward-related processes and perceived control. Finally, through the lens of this reward-based framework of perceived control, we consider the implications of perceived control in clinical deficits and how these insights could help us better understand psychopathology and treatment options.
... The probability of the action also influences illusion of control. The more people act, the greater their contingency judgments will be (e.g., Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2009;Blanco et al., 2011;Matute, 1996). ...
... The probability of the action also influences illusion of control. The more people act, the greater their contingency judgments will be (e.g., Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2009;Blanco et al., 2011;Matute, 1996). ...
The disconnect between the effectuation literature and the cognitive bias research creates artificial boundaries to inhibit the development of a more integrated understanding of decision-making in entrepreneurship. We analyze the effect of effectuation vis a vis on the biases of overconfidence and illusion of control. We test the effect in both a field survey with entrepreneurs and an experiment. Unraveling the patterns of relationships between effectuation and biases helps ground the burgeoning effectuation theory to more established cognitive science theories and advance the scholarly understanding of entrepreneurial decision-making.
... The results showed that a control threat manipulation did not affect the extent to which people perceived and developed illusory contingencies. Previous studies using similar paradigms have indicated that people readily develop illusions of control in a lab-based setting (Langer, 1975;Langer & Roth, 1975;Matute, 1996) and these so-called 'positive illusions' have been related to a basic motivational need to maintain self-esteem (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Still, it could be argued that the perception of illusory contingencies in the tasks that we used, does not fulfill the need for having ' epistemic structuring tendencies' that help people need to cope when faced with a loss of control (Landau et al., 2015). ...
We report seven experiments to investigate the effects of control threat manipulations on different measures of illusory pattern perception: magical thinking (Study 1–3), conspiracy beliefs (Study 4), paranormal beliefs (Study 5) and agent detection (Study 6 and 7). Overall we did not find evidence for an effect of control threat on any of our relevant dependent measures. By using Bayesian analyses we obtained positive evidence for the null-hypothesis that an experimentally induced loss of control does not affect illusory pattern perception. Finally, by re-conducting a recent meta-analysis we found strong evidence for publication bias and a relatively small effect size for control-threat manipulations. Together, these results cast doubt on the potential efficacy of experimental autobiographical recall manipulations to manipulate feelings of control.
... This lack of a difference was probably not due to the sample size, because the number of participants in the present study (24 in each condition), although perhaps small compared with some studies in decision making, was comparable to other illusion of control studies. For instance, in the original Langer and Roth (1975) study, there were 15 participants in each condition; in Sanderson, Rapee, and Barlow's (1989) study, there were 10 participants in each condition; and in Matute's (1996) study there were 8 participants in each condition. ...
Proximity to an event or task can alter one's perception or judgment in many situations. We extended such findings to two cognitive biases in decision making and showed that one's psychological proximity to the task was a prerequisite that had to be met before the illusion of control and the framing effect could arise. In Experiment 1, a coin-tossing task was used to create an illusion of control. Unlike the participants who reported their guesses to the experimenter directly, participants who reported their guesses while watching themselves engage in the task on a monitor, and were thus distanced to some extent from the task, did not show an illusion of control. In Experiment 2, the Asian disease decision-making task was used to show a framing effect. The same distancing procedure as in Experiment 1 removed the participants' wording-based risk preference bias. Thus, the proximity prerequisite was shown to extend also to the framing effect. We discuss the findings within the framework of explanations offered for these two biases and suggest that a prerequisite of proximity may generalize to other decision-making biases.
... A "percentage of control" over presentation of the event can be calculated by subtracting the percentage of event presence in the absence of a response from the percentage of the same event after the occurance of response (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1979). By the end of the sessions, with similar contingencies experimenters usually ask the subjects to judge the degree of control they had over the presentation of the event (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1979;Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2009, 2012Matute, 1993Matute, , 1994Matute, , 1995Matute, , 1996Matute, Vadillo, Vegas, & Blanco, 2007;Matute, Yarritu & Vadillo, 2011;Vadillo, Matute, & Blanco, 2013). Behavior produced in this kind of situation sometimes is called "superstitious" (e.g. ...
Superstition has been analyzed in behavioral sciences through the use of several terms (e.g., superstition, superstitious behavior, superstitious rules, and superstitious beliefs). This paper argues that the interpretation of the results of studies on superstition depend on: a) the experimental arrangements that are used to study this subject, b) what each of these arrangements enable us to conclude about behavioral relations, and c) assumptions about the role that is attributed to verbal behavior during the construction of superstitions. The role that is attributed to verbal behavior and the experimental arrangements that are chosen are related to underlying concepts of the effects of environmental variables on the control of behavior, namely whether these variables have a direct or indirect (mediational) effect over behavior. Based on these discussions, an alternative course of action is to emphasize existing functional relations between variables as a direct contingency effect, regardless of whether these variables or effects are verbal or nonverbal.
... First, and to emulate real-world situations, experimental paradigms in conditioning and contingency/causal learning usually maintain some of the cognitive requirements of realworld experiences. Thus, in contingency learning tasks, the most widely used presentation format shows the information about the potential cause and the alleged consequence on a trialby-trial basis [46][47][48]. More specifically, participants are sequentially presented with a series of events in which the cause and the consequence under assessment can be either present or absent. ...
Causal illusions occur when people perceive a causal relation between two events that are actually unrelated. One factor that has been shown to promote these mistaken beliefs is the outcome probability. Thus, people tend to overestimate the strength of a causal relation when the potential consequence (i.e. the outcome) occurs with a high probability (outcome-density bias). Given that children and adults differ in several important features involved in causal judgment, including prior knowledge and basic cognitive skills, developmental studies can be considered an outstanding approach to detect and further explore the psychological processes and mechanisms underlying this bias. However, the outcome density bias has been mainly explored in adulthood, and no previous evidence for this bias has been reported in children. Thus, the purpose of this study was to extend outcome-density bias research to childhood. In two experiments, children between 6 and 8 years old were exposed to two similar setups, both showing a non-contingent relation between the potential cause and the outcome. These two scenarios differed only in the probability of the outcome, which could either be high or low. Children judged the relation between the two events to be stronger in the high probability of the outcome setting, revealing that, like adults, they develop causal illusions when the outcome is frequent.
... Por ejemplo, la relación entre agencia personal y causación también ha sido estudiada desde una perspectiva asociacionista, sin los compromisos teóricos de Piaget. Matute (1996) considera que la dimensión causal de la agencia individual es primitiva y, en ese sentido, tiende a ser sobreestimada. Desde este marco, se ha encontrado que la probabilidad de la consecuencia, con independencia de la contingencia real entre las acciones de los organismos y sus consecuencias, puede generar la ilusión de control (Blanco, Ma- tute, & Vadillo, 2011). ...
Like other cognitive skills, the ability to reason causally changes during the course of development from early childhood to adulthood. There is, however, no agreement about how its development occurs. In this paper we propose a theoretical analysis to understand this process, namely, the idea that causal reasoning is a domain-general ability that is gradually enriched by the refinement of metacognitive skills, which allows reasoning independently from the immediate context. This proposal is based on the analysis of evidence of causal reasoning in young children, as well as evidence of integration of these skills during early adolescence with processes of argumentation and explanation. The paper also points out some methodological differences in studies with children and adolescents.
... Cognitive distortions endorsed by older adult gamblers from a multi-ethnic Asian background of illusion of control, probability control and interpretive control corresponded with the findings of Toneatto et al. [8]. Illusion of control is defined as the tendency to believe that one's behavior is the cause of the occurrence of desired outcome, an outcome which in fact occurs independently of any action on the person's part [34,35]. This distortion might result from attempts to gain control by gamblers in an uncertain environment wherein chances of success are low. ...
Aims
The study aims to describe the construct of cognitive distortions based on the narratives of older adult gamblers (aged 60 years and above) in Singapore.
Methods
Singapore residents (citizens or permanent residents) aged 60 years and above, who were current or past regular gamblers were included in the study. Participants were recruited using a combination of venue based approach, referrals from service providers as well as by snowball sampling. In all, 25 in-depth interviews were conducted with older adult gamblers. The six-step thematic network analysis methodology was adopted for data analysis.
Results
The mean age of the participants was 66.2 years. The majority were male (n = 18), of Chinese ethnicity (n = 16), with a mean age of gambling initiation at 24.5 years. Among older adult gamblers, cognitive distortions emerged as a significant global theme comprising three organizing themes–illusion of control, probability control and interpretive control. The organizing themes comprised nine basic themes: perception of gambling as a skill, near miss, concept of luck, superstitious beliefs, entrapment, gambler’s fallacy, chasing wins, chasing losses, and beliefs that wins are more than losses.
Conclusions
Cognitive distortions were endorsed by all gamblers in the current study and were shown to play a role in both maintaining and escalating the gambling behaviour. While the surface characteristics of the distortions had a culture-specific appearance, the deeper characteristics of the distortions may in fact be more universal than previously thought. Future research must include longitudinal studies to understand causal relationships between cognitive distortions and gambling as well as the role of culture-specific distortions both in the maintenance and treatment of the disorder.
Previous research indicates that economic scarcity affects people's judgments, decisions, and cognition in a variety of contexts, and with various consequences. We hypothesized that scarcity could sometimes reduce cognitive biases. Specifically, it could reduce the causal illusion, a cognitive bias that is at the heart of superstitions and irrational thoughts, and consists of believing that two events are causally connected when they are not. In three experiments, participants played the role of doctors deciding whether to administer a drug to a series of patients. The drug was ineffective, because the percentage of patients recovering was identical regardless of whether they took the drug. We manipulated the budget available to buy the drugs, tough all participants had enough for all their patients. Even so, participants in the scarce group reduced the use of the drug and showed a lower causal illusion than participants in the wealthy group. Experiments 2 and 3 added a phase in which the budget changed. Participants who transitioned from scarcity to wealth exhibited a reduced use of resources and a lower causal illusion, whereas participants transitioning from wealth to scarcity were unaffected by their previous history.
Detecting covariation in sequential events provides us with a powerful means of inferring the causal structure of our world. However, people often overestimate the causal relationship between unrelated events, a phenomenon referred to as illusory causation. This tendency is greatest when the putative effect occurs frequently; the widely replicated outcome density (OD) effect. Most laboratory research on illusory causation and the OD effect has focused on possible causes of a positive outcome, such as a drug that causes patient recovery. Despite its relevance, relatively few studies have examined illusory causation in cases where a cue is hypothesized to generate an unfavorable (negative) outcome, such as a drug that produces unwanted side effects. Here, we directly compared how people develop illusory beliefs about the generation of positive versus negative outcomes. We presented all participants with a drug treatment that was hypothesized to cause high readings of a fictitious cell count (but had no effect on cell count across a series of learning trials). We manipulated whether a high cell count occurred frequently or infrequently and whether a high cell count should be considered a beneficial medical outcome or an undesirable side effect. We found consistent evidence of an OD effect but no effect of the valence of the high cell count outcome. This suggests that illusory beliefs are not controlled by the desirability of the cause-effect relationship. We discuss implications for theories of applied causal reasoning.
This systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis are intended to provide qualitative and quantitative knowledge on our research domain—risk factors affecting cryptocurrency market returns. Numerous review papers and research papers are considered for this study, published during 2019–2021. Out of these most influential papers were considered for thorough content analysis. These papers were segregated based on the resulting outcome of bibliometric analysis. Three major themes were identified using the clustering technique viz. cryptocurrency technology, markets and business aspects of cryptocurrency, security and governance. These clusters identified prominent keywords in this research domain and helped identify major and broader issues related to cryptocurrency markets. Furthermore, a detailed study was conducted on stablecoin, one of the highly proposed solutions for mitigating the risk of cryptocurrencies, as suggested by most of the authors we studied during this research (mentioned in the clusters under study). The correlation of AI with cryptocurrency is reviewed in prospects of pattern analysis of cryptocurrency price drivers. A research gap has also been identified, giving researchers a pathway to follow and help mitigate the crypto market risks.KeywordsCryptocurrencyVolatilityBlockchainStablecoinsBitcoinBibliometric analysisVolume
Finance Technology (Fintech) has emerged as the current trend in the financial world. Fintech services gain popularity from the increasing adoption by organizations and consumers. By applying empirical research, this chapter aims to explore the important factors influencing consumer satisfaction and continuance intention to adopt Fintech services. As previous studies on customers’ behavioral intention to adopt Fintech were mostly conducted in the context of developed countries, there is a paucity of research in the developing countries’ perspective. To address the research gap, this study focused on five selected developing countries, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Nigeria and Philippines. Drawing on the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for the proposed research model, customer innovativeness, hedonic motivation, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, system quality and technology self-efficacy have positive effect on customer satisfaction and subsequently, continuance intention to adopt Fintech. The findings recommend that Fintech service providers to develop effective strategic frameworks to build consumer satisfaction and encourage their continuance intention to adopt Fintech.
The sense of agency that normally accompanies voluntary actions depends on a combination of sensory predictions and other inferences. For example, when people manipulate moving objects and rate their degree of control, control ratings are influenced by proximal correlations between motor commands and visual feedback as well as the overall success or failure of the action. The relative importance of sensory predictions vs. post hoc feedback may depend on the availability and perceived reliability of those cues, which is context dependent. The present study investigated how increasing cognitive load during a visuomotor tracking task influences the sense of agency, and whether cognitive load influences the extent to which control ratings depend on sensory predictions vs. post hoc feedback. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed a dual task that involved tracking a moving target using a joystick while rehearsing 3, 5, or 7 digits. Control ratings decreased as memory set size increased, even though set size had no significant effect on objective tracking error. Experiment 3 replicated this finding while also manipulating the favorability of feedback presented after each trial. Control ratings were correlated with post hoc feedback, but there was no significant interaction between feedback and cognitive load. These results suggest that sensorimotor predictions, performance feedback, and availability of working memory resources can all influence sense of agency. The hypothesis that people rely more on post hoc feedback to rate control when they are distracted was not supported.
The Sense of agency (SoA) as conceived in experimental paradigms adheres to “cognitive penetration” and “cognitive phenomenology.” Cognitive penetrability is the assumption that agency states penetrate sensory modalities like time perception – the Intentional binding (IB) hypothesis – and auditory, visual and tactile perceptions – the Sensory attenuation (SA) hypothesis. Cognitive phenomenology, on the other hand, assumes that agency states are perceptual or experiential, akin to sensory states. I critically examine these operationalizations and argue that the SoA is a judgment effect rather than a perceptual/phenomenal state. My thesis criticizes the experimentally operationalized implicit SoA (in chapter 2), explicit SoA (in chapter 3) and cue-integrated SoA (in chapter 4) by arguing that: (a) There is uncertainty in the SoA experimental operationalization (making the participants prone to judgment effects); (b) There are inconsistencies and incoherence between different findings and reports in the SoA domain; (c) The SoA reports are influenced by prior as well as online-generated beliefs (under uncertainty); (d) The SoA operationalizations had inaccuracy or approximation standard for measuring perception/experience of agency; (e) Under certainty and accuracy standard (for perception), the SoA (biased or nonveridical) reports might not have occurred at all; and (f) Reported inconsistencies and, the effects of beliefs can be parsimoniously accounted by compositionality nature of judgment. Thus, my thesis concludes that SoA reports are not instances of feelings/perceptions but are judgments.
How does one know that (s)he is the causal agent of their motor actions? Earlier theories of sense of agency have attributed the capacity for perception of self-agency to the comparator process of the motor-control/action system. However, with the advent of the findings implying a role of non-motor cues (like affective states, beliefs, primed concepts, and social instructions or previews of actions) in the sense of agency literature, the perception of self-agency is hypothesized to be generated even by non-motor cues (based on their relative reliability or weighting estimate); and, this theory is come to be known as the cue-integration of sense of agency. However, the cue-integration theory motivates skepticism about whether it is falsifiable and whether it is plausible that non-motor cues that are sensorily unrelated to typical sensory processes of self-agency have the capacity to produce a perception of self-agency. To substantiate this skepticism, I critically analyze the experimental operationalizations of cue-integration—with the (classic) vicarious agency experiment as a case study—to show that (1) the participants in these experiments are ambiguous about their causal agency over motor actions, (2) thus, these participants resort to reports of self-agency as heuristic judgments (under ambiguity) rather than due to cue-integration per se, and (3) there might not have occurred cue-integration based self-agency reports if these experimental operationalizations had eliminated ambiguity about the causal agency. Thus, I conclude that the reports of self-agency (observed in typical non-motor cues based cue-integration experiments) are not instances of perceptual effect—that are hypothesized to be produced by non-motor cues—but are of heuristic judgment effect.
The dual strategy model of reasoning suggests that people can either use a Statistical or a Counterexample strategy to process information. Previous studies on contingency learning have shown a sufficiency bias: people give more importance to events where the potential cause is present (sufficiency) rather than events where the potential cause is absent (necessity). We examine the hypothesis that strategy use predicts individual differences in use of sufficiency information in contingency judgements. Study 1 used an active learning contingency task. Results showed that Statistical reasoners were more influenced by sufficiency information than Counterexample reasoners. Study 2 used a passive learning contingency task, where sufficiency was constant and only necessity information (based on outcomes when the potential cause was absent) was varied. Results showed that only Counterexample reasoners were sensitive to necessity information. These results demonstrate that strategy use is correlated with individual differences in information processing in contingency learning.
Drawing on social cognitive theory and social network theory, this study investigates the relationships between managerial ties, entrepreneurs’ cognitive bias, and the effectuation and causation of behavioural modes of entrepreneurship. It uses structural equation modelling to analyse a sample of 214 entrepreneurs in China. The empirical results indicate that business ties lead entrepreneurs to use effectual approaches by prompting the entrepreneurs’ overconfidence, whereas institutional ties enable entrepreneurs to use both causation and effectuation by prompting the entrepreneurs’ illusion of control. This study delineates how different types of managerial ties affect causation and effectuation through different cognitive mechanisms.
Background and objectives
Excessive maladaptive avoidance has been claimed to be one of the mechanisms through which intolerance of uncertainty (IU) may play its causal role in the development and maintenance of several anxiety and compulsive disorders. Consistently, Flores et al. (2018) found that individuals with higher Prospective IU (P-IU), a specific IU subfactor, display excessive avoidance response repetitions in a free-operant discriminative task to avoid an aversive noise. In the present study we tested the hypothesis that P-IU not only predicts the amount of avoidance responses but also how well the temporal distribution of such responses fits the temporal distribution of threats.
Methods
Further correlation and hierarchical regression analysis of Flores et al.‘s (2018) data served to test this hypothesis. We evaluated two aspects of the temporal distribution of responses: a) for how long participants were performing the responses; b) the behavioral discrimination between threatening and safe time periods.
Results
The results showed that scoring high in P-IU was positively associated with longer periods of time dedicated to avoiding and with worse behavioral discrimination between threatening and safe time periods. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that later addition of inhibitory intolerance of uncertainty and trait anxiety did not significantly improved the explained variance.
Limitations
Our results are exclusively based on the use of a low-cost avoidance response, and the present study does not clarify the precise mechanisms that lead high P-IU people to engage in non-optimal avoidance response distribution through time.
Conclusions
These results suggest that excessive avoidance is also driven by uncertainty of threat timing and highlight the relevance of P-IU as a vulnerability factor for excessive and outspread avoidance behaviors.
A popular thesis in psychology holds that ordinary people judge others’ mental states to be uncontrollable, unintentional, or otherwise involuntary. The present research challenges this thesis and documents how attributions of mental state control affect social decision making, predict policy preferences, and fuel conflict in close relationships. In Chapter 1, I show that lay people by-and-large attribute intentional control to others over their mental states. Additionally, I provide causal evidence that these attributions of control predict judgments of responsibility as well as decisions to confront and reprimand someone for having an objectionable attitude. By overturning a common misconception about how people evaluate mental states, these findings help resolve a long-standing debate about the lay concept of moral responsibility. In Chapter 2, I extend these findings to interpersonal emotion regulation in order to predict how observers react to close others who experience stress, anxiety, or distress. Across six studies, I show that people’s emotional support hinges on attributions of emotion control: People are more inclined to react supportively when they judge that the target individual cannot regulate their own emotions, but react unsupportively, sometimes evincing an intention to make others feel bad for their emotions, when they judge that those others can regulate their negative emotion away themselves. People evaluate others’ emotion control based on assessments of their own emotion regulation capacity, how readily reappraised the target’s emotion is, and how rational the target is. Finally, I show that judgments of emotion control predict self-reported supportive thoughts and behaviors in close relationships as well as preferences for university policies addressing microaggressions. Lastly, in Chapter 3, I show that people believe that others have more control over their beliefs than they themselves do. This discrepancy arises because, even though people conceptualize beliefs as controllable, they tend to experience the beliefs they hold as outside their control. When reasoning about others, people fail to generalize this experience to others and instead rely on their conceptualization of belief as controllable. In light of Chapters 1 and 2, I discuss how this discrepancy may explain why ideological disagreements are so difficult to resolve.
Studies of people's beliefs about how much they control events have shown that people often
overestimate the extent to which the result depends on their own behavior. The purpose of this study
is to test the assumption of reducing the illusion of control by using a causal question in desirable and
undesirable results. The influence of the causal question on the size of the illusion of control, measured
by the self-esteem of the subjects, was not found.
Keywords: cognitive distortions, illusion of control.
Studies of people's beliefs about how much they control events have shown that people often
overestimate the extent to which the result depends on their own behavior. The purpose of this study
is to test the assumption of reducing the illusion of control by using a causal question in desirable and
undesirable results. The influence of the causal question on the size of the illusion of control, measured
by the self-esteem of the subjects, was not found.
Keywords: cognitive distortions, illusion of control.
Studies of people's beliefs about how much they control events have shown that people often overestimate the extent to which the result depends on their own behavior. The purpose of this study is to test the assumption of reducing the illusion of control by using a causal question in desirable and undesirable results. The influence of the causal question on the size of the illusion of control, measured by the self-esteem of the subjects, was not found.
Keywords: cognitive distortions, illusion of control.
The study of the mechanism that detects the contingency between events. in both humans and non-human animals, is a matter of considerable research activity. Two broad categories of explanations of the acquisition of contingency information have received extensive evaluation: rule-based models and associative models. This article assesses the two categories of models for human contingency judgments. The data reveal systematic departures in contingency judgments from the predictions of rule-based models. Recent studies indicate that a contiguity model of Pavlovian conditioning is a useful heuristic for conceptualizing human contingency judgments.
We examined whether individual differences in susceptibility to the illusion of control predicted differential vulnerability to depressive responses after a laboratory failure and naturally occurring life stressors. The illusion of control decreased the likelihood that subjects (N= 145) would (a)show immediate negative mood reactions to the laboratory failure, (b) become discouraged after naturally occurring negative life events, and (c) experience increases in depressive symptoms a month later given the occurrence of a high number of negative life events. In addition, the stress-moderating effect of the illusion of control on later depressive symptoms appeared to be mediated in part by its effect on reducing the discouragement subjects experienced from the occurrence of negative life events. These findings provide support for the hopelessness theory of depression and for the optimistic illusion-mental health link.
Learned helplessness and superstition accounts of uncontrollability predict opposite results for subjects exposed to noncontingent reinforcement. Experiment 1 used the instrumental-cognitive triadic design proposed by Hiroto and Seligman (1975) for the testing of learned helplessness in humans, but eliminated the "failure light" that they introduced in their procedure. Results showed that Yoked subjects tend to superstitious behavior and illusion of control during exposure to uncontrollable noise. This, in turn, prevents the development of learned helplessness because uncontrollability is not perceived. In Experiment 2, the failure feedback manipulation was added to the Yoked condition. Results of this experiment replicate previous findings of a proactive interference effect in humans—often characterized as learned helplessness. This effect, however, does not support learned helplessness theory because failure feedback is needed for its development. It is argued that conditions of response-independent reinforcement commonly used in human research do not lead to learned helplessness, but to superstitious behavior and illusion of control. Different conditions could lead to learned helplessness, but the limits between superstition and helplessness have not yet been investigated.
Previous investigations have shown that perceived contingency between responses and outcomes increases with the frequency of positive outcomes in the absence of actual contingency. In the present experiment with 30 undergraduates, judgments were obtained when both response alternatives were active choices (as in previous experiments), and when one alternative was to make no response. In the latter case, judgments were more accurate and less influenced by the frequency of positive outcomes. This result was predicted by the hypothesis that when both alternatives are active, Ss tend to assume that in the absence of any response no positive outcomes would occur. This faulty assumption, which is hypothesized to be one source of distortion in the judgment of contingency, is ruled out when no response is an explicit alternative within the task. (French abstract) (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Argues that individuals influence the amount of control they subjectively experience by means of their own actions. A review of the empirical evidence shows that (a) systematic interindividual differences exist in probability of action, implying that action can affect control judgments across a wide range of situations; and (b) the action–outcome data used in making control judgments are best described as confirming and disconfirming cases, implying that subjective control experience consists mainly of conjoint probability information. Simple probability theory leads to the conclusion that probability of action contributes to subjective control experience by directly affecting the probability of confirming and disconfirming cases. Implications are discussed in relation to individual difference and task factor determinants of control beliefs, discrepancies between control beliefs and objective conditions, and stability and development of control beliefs across the life span. (99 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Investigated the possible role of the conditional probabilities of an outcome given a response P(O/R) and of an outcome given the absence of a response P(O/NoR) in mediating college students' judgments of response–outcome contingency. A total of 150 Ss in 3 experiments were asked to describe the effect that telegraph key tapping had on the brief illumination of a lamp. Ss' ratings along a prevent–cause scale closely approximated the scheduled contingencies between response (R = key tapping) and outcome (O = lamp illumination), as measured by the delta coefficient δP = P(O/R) – P(O/NoR) (Exps 1 and 3). Ss also sensitively rated the conditional probabilities of an outcome when they tapped the key and when they refrained from doing so (Exps 2 and 3). Nevertheless, the evidence failed to support the hypothesis that causal ratings were mediated by subjective judgments of P(O/R) and P(O/NoR) because the errors made in judging the conditional probabilities were not consistent with the errors made judging δP. The authors suggest that an associative explanation derived from a model devised by R. A. Rescorla and A. R. Wagner (1972) might account for these and other results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted a series of 6 studies involving 631 adults to elucidate the "illusion of control" phenomenon, defined as an expectancy of a personal success probability inappropriately higher than the objective probability would warrant. It was predicted that factors from skill situations (competition, choice, familiarity, involvement) introduced into chance situations would cause Ss to feel inappropriately confident. In Study 1 Ss cut cards against either a confident or a nervous competitor; in Study 2 lottery participants were or were not given a choice of ticket; in Study 3 lottery participants were or were not given a choice of either familiar or unfamiliar lottery tickets; in Study 4, Ss in a novel chance game either had or did not have practice and responded either by themselves or by proxy; in Study 5 lottery participants at a racetrack were asked their confidence at different times; finally, in Study 6 lottery participants either received a single 3-digit ticket or 1 digit on each of 3 days. Indicators of confidence in all 6 studies supported the prediction. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Judgments about relationships or covariations between events are central to several areas of research and theory in social psychology. In the present article, the normative, or statistically correct, model for making covariation judgments is outlined in detail. Six steps of the normative model, from deciding what data are relevant to the judgment to using the judgment as a basis for predictions and decisions, are specified. Potential sources of error in social perceivers' covariation judgments are identified at each step, and research on social perceivers' ability to follow each step in the normative model is reviewed. It is concluded that statistically naive individuals have a tenuous grasp of the concept of covariation, and circumstances under which covariation judgments tend to be accurate or inaccurate are considered. Finally, implications for research on attribution theory, implicit personality theory, stereotyping, and perceived control are discussed. (137 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Tested the hypothesis that an individual will feel control over an outcome if he causes the outcome and if he knows before causing it what he hopes to obtain. 65 male undergraduates were shown 2 consumer items and told that they would get to win 1 by a chance drawing. 2 marbles of different colors were placed in a can and mixed up. One-third of the Ss were told that the E would pick a marble to determine their prize and were told beforehand which marble stood for which prize. Another third were told to select a marble to determine their prize and were told beforehand which marble stood for which prize. The remaining Ss were told to select a marble to determine their prize but were not told until after they had picked their marble which marble stood for which prize. Ss then received a marble which led them to win either the item they preferred or the item they did not prefer. Results strongly support the hypothesis: Ss who caused their own outcome and knew beforehand what they hoped to obtain perceived themselves to have more control over the outcome, more choice about which outcome they received, and more responsibility for their outcome than Ss in the remaining conditions. These results were replicated in a 2nd experiment with the same Ss. The relationship between these studies and previous experiments on control is explored, and some possibilities for future research on control are considered. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
The intentional theory of instrumental performance proposes that performance of an action is determined in part by a belief about its causal effectiveness in producing a desired outcome. At variance with this notion, previous implicit learning experiments appear to have yielded dissociations between subjects' performance and beliefs. In two experiments, subjects were given an opportunity to perform an action--pressing a key on a computer keyboard--which was associated with an outcome on the computer screen according to a free-operant contingency. The subjects in one group were asked to judge the effectiveness of the action in causing the outcome, while those in a second group were asked to maximize their points score under a payoff schedule. In the first study, the effect of varying the contingency between the action and outcome was examined by keeping the probability of an outcome contiguous with an action constant and varying the probability of an outcome in the absence of an action. Performance and judgments showed a comparable sensitivity to variations of the instrumental contingency. In the second study, the delay between the action and the resultant outcome was varied. Increasing the action-outcome delay from 0 sec up to 4 sec produced a systematic decline in both causal judgments and performance relative to noncontingent, control conditions. These results are in accord with the intentional theory of performance, but they present difficulties for the notion of implicit learning.
80 Ss were instructed that their responses on a circular array of pushbuttons determined whether a reward or nonreward would occur. Reward occurrence was preprogrammed and random with the independent variable the relative frequency of reward. Superstitious response preferences and patterns were established as a function of the probability of reward, but rotational sequences for the systematic testing of responses were also established as orderly scanning rules, especially following nonreward. The author distinguishes between collecting and using information in that they are differentially influenced by the uncertainty of outcome and the probability of reward.
This chapter discusses that experimental psychology is no longer a unified field of scholarship. The most obvious sign of disintegration is the division of the Journal of Experimental Psychology into specialized periodicals. Many forces propel this fractionation. First, the explosion of interest in many small spheres of inquiry has made it extremely difficult for an individual to master more than one. Second, the recent popularity of interdisciplinary research has lured many workers away from the central issues of experimental psychology. Third, there is a growing division between researchers of human and animal behavior; this division has been primarily driven by contemporary cognitive psychologists, who see little reason to refer to the behavior of animals or to inquire into the generality of behavioral principles. The chapter considers the study of causal perception. This area is certainly at the core of experimental psychology. Although recent research in animal cognition has taken the tack of bringing human paradigms into the animal laboratory, the experimental research is described has adopted the reverse strategy of bringing animal paradigms into the human laboratory. A further unfortunate fact is that today's experimental psychologists are receiving little or no training in the history and philosophy of psychology. This neglected aspect means that investigations of a problem area are often undertaken without a full understanding of the analytical issues that would help guide empirical inquiry.
Studies concerned with judgments of contingency between binary variables have often ignored what the variables stand for. The two values of a binary variable can be represented as a prevailing state (nonevent) or as an active state (event). Judgments under the four conditions resulting from the combination of a binary input variable that can be represented as event-nonevent or event-event with an outcome variable that can be represented in the same way were obtained. It is shown in Experiment 1, that judgments of data sets which exhibit the same degree of covariation depend upon how the input and output variables are represented. In Experiment 2 the case where both the input and output variables are represented as event-nonevent is examined. Judgments were higher when the pairing of the input event was with the output event and the input nonevent with the output nonevent that when the pairing was of event with nonevent, suggesting a causal compatibility of event-event pairings and a causal incompatibility of event-nonevent pairings. Experiment 3 demonstrates that judgments of the strength of the relation between binary input and output variables is not based on the appropriate statistical measure, the difference between two conditional probabilities. The overall pattern of judgments in the three experiments is mainly explicable on the basis of two principles: (1) judgments tend to be based on the difference between confirming and disconfirming cases and (2) causal compatibility in the representation of the input and output variables plays a critical role.
In two experiments, positive, negative, and zero response-outcome contingencies were responded to and rated by college students under a free-operant procedure. In Experiment 1, outcomes were either neutral or were associated with point gain. In Experiment 2, subjects were administered different outcome treatments: neutral outcomes, outcomes associated with money gain, or outcomes associated with money loss. In both experiments, subjects' judgments of response-outcome contingency and their operant responses were each strong linear functions of ΔP, the difference between the probability of an outcome given a response and the probability of an outcome given no response. Appetitive and aversive outcomes produced opposite and symmetrical response patterns. In Experiment 1, no differences in ratings occurred with neutral or appetitive outcomes; however, in Experiment 2, more potent appetitve outcomes led to somewhat more extreme ratings than either neutral or aversive outcomes. Increasing outcome probability produced only a slight bias in ratings of noncontingent problems in Experiment 1 and no bias in Experiment 2. Contrary to predictions derived from an analysis of superstitious behavior, increasing outcome probability in noncontingent problems decreased operant responding when outcomes were appetitive and increased operant responding when outcomes were aversive. Trend analyses revealed that Δ P was superior to several other metrics in predicting subjects' estimates of contingency and the behavioral effects of contingency. Operant responding was in closer accord with matching predictions than with maximizing predictions.
In three experiments, college studients responded to and rated a range of positive, random, and negative response-outcome contingencies presented in free-operant formats. These experiments sought a paradigm that would yield sensitive and unbiased judgments of response-outcome relations and explored the role of time in the judgment of response-outcome covariation. In Experiment 1, the effects of making continuous and discrete responses on subjects' contingency judgments were compared. In Experiment 2, the effects of changing the temporal definition of discrete responses were examined as were the effects of the amount of exposure to contingency problems. In Experiment 3, the effects of temporal regularity in defining response occurrence and nonoccurrence were investigated. In all three experiments, subjects' judgments were strong linear functions of the programmed contingencies between telegraph key operation and the illumination of a brief light. This result shows free-operant scheduling of response-outcome contingencies to be a highly sensitive and unbiased method of investigating causal perception. Additionally, judgment accuracy was found to be higher for males than for females and to improve as the probability of the subject's making a recorded response rose from .00 toward .50. Finally, a correlational analysis of several possible judgment rules supported the conclusion that subjects rated response-outcome relations on the basis of the difference in the probability of an outcome given their having recently made or not made a response.
Two experiments investigated the way in which judgments of the extent to which an action caused an outcome changed as more experience of the actionoutcome contingency was presented. In the first experiment judgments increased across trials when there was a positive contingency and decreased when there was a negative contingency. In noncontingent situations judgments were biased by the overall probability of the outcome. In the second experiment the changes across trials under positive and negative contingencies persisted even when the subjects were given the opportunity to dissociate their causality judgments from their degree of confidence in those judgments. The results are at variance with the dP and dD theories which attempt to account for causality judgments in terms of statistical rules based on the probabilities or frequencies of the relevant events. If such theories were modified, however, to take account of the regression of the subjects' estimates onto the actual probabilities or frequencies, then the data could be accommodated. On the other hand, a simple associative view is also able to account for the data.
The contingency between conditional and unconditional stimuli in classical conditioning paradigms, and between responses and consequences in instrumental conditioning paradigms, is analyzed. The results are represented in two- and three-dimensional spaces in which points correspond to procedures, or procedures and outcomes. Traditional statistical and psychological measures of association are applied to data in classical conditioning. Root mean square contingency, Ø, is proposed as a measure of contingency characterizing classical conditioning effects at asymptote. In instrumental training procedures, traditional measures of association are inappropriate, since one degree of freedom-response probability-is yielded to the subject. Further analysis of instrumental contingencies yields a surprising result. The well established "Matching Law" in free-operant concurrent schedules subsumes the "Probability Matching" finding of mathematical learning theory, and both are equivalent to zero contingency between responses and consequences.
Two experiments investigated the role of temporal contiguity in college students' responding to and rating of contingency relations during operant conditioning. Schedules were devised that determined when but not whether appetitive or aversive events would occur. Subjects' reports concerning the schedules were obtained by means of a 200-point rating scale, anchored by the phrases "prevents the light from occurring" (-100) and "causes the light to occur" (+100). When tapping a telegraph key advanced the time of point gain, responding was maintained or increased and subjects gave positive ratings. When tapping a telegraph key advanced the time of point loss, subjects also gave positive ratings, but responding now decreased. When key tapping delayed the time of point gain, responding decreased and subjects gave negative ratings. When key tapping delayed the time of point loss, subjects also gave negative ratings, but responding now increased. These findings implicate response-outcome contiguity as an important contributor to causal perception and to reinforcement and punishment effects. Other accounts-such as those stressing the local probabilistic relation between response and outcome or the molar correlation between response rate and outcome rate-were seen to be less preferred interpretations of these and other results.
Human contingency judgments: Rule based or associative? P.sjcliologiccrl Biillcfin. 114. 435448 Thejudgment ofcontingency and the nature of response alternatives The effect of representations of binary variables on judgment of influence
- Allan L G L G Allan
- H Jenkins
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