Illusion of control

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People love to control what is happening in their life, and this applies not only to emotions, feelings and their own actions: in order to achieve balance in life, control is ideally needed over external events, the influence on which we have no influence, but which are significant for us. Such control, of course, is far from always possible, and those who are sure of the opposite are subject to cognitive distortion under a simple and laconic name - "the illusion of control." Read about him in our blog.

All human actions are aimed at maximizing benefits. However, the benefits are difficult to maximize in proven ways. For example, if a person wants to make a lot of money, he can take a risk by investing in a new startup. At the same time, it is difficult to answer for the chances of success: there are many external and internal factors that can affect the outcome of events. The task is further complicated by the fact that not all of these factors are under the control of our investor: he is unlikely to be able to influence the securities market or prevent a possible bankruptcy of the company.

In some situations, you may feel that everything is under control - both external and internal factors - no matter how difficult it is to control them. This feeling is considered a cognitive bias called the "illusion of control". It was first formulated by Yale psychology professor Ellen Langer in the mid-1970s.

According to Langer's definition, this illusion occurs when "the expected probability of personal success is inadequately higher than the objective one." The psychologist suggested that people subject to the "illusion of control" cannot separate the two factors influencing the outcome of an event - skills and chance, and believe that they are able to control not only the first, but also the second.

Langer and her colleagues tested the influence of the "illusion of control" on decision-making in a series of experiments. For example, in one of them, scientists organized a "lottery", and alternately handed out tickets to the participants in the experiment, then allowed them to choose tickets on their own. This was done to test whether the value of tickets for participants would change depending on the availability and lack of choice.

It turned out that if a participant chooses a ticket himself, then it is much more difficult for him to part with it: when offering to sell his ticket, the participants overestimated its price eight times. Even though winning the lottery was still a matter of chance, participants believed that by choosing their own ticket, they gained the very control they needed to succeed.

Thus, Langer showed that people are seriously capable of believing that they have control over circumstances that are independent of them - but only if the situation also implies the presence of factors that can actually be controlled.

Of course, the "illusion of control" arises not only when everything depends on the case. Sometimes the situation may seem hopeless from the outside, but not for someone who, as it seems to him, has everything under control.

As other scientists have shown, following Langer, a variety of factors can influence the emergence of the "illusion of control", which, although more dependent on personal skills, are still influenced by chance. These include confidence in success, familiarity with the situation (if this has already happened to a person and he has achieved success, then he will do it again), as well as, no matter how obvious, the desire for control.

External circumstances can also affect confidence in success: if, along the way, a person receives more positive reviews, then his confidence will strengthen, and if there are more negative ones, on the contrary, it will decrease.

The "illusion of control" is considered one of the positive illusions that allow a person to think well of themselves, their capabilities and their surroundings - sometimes even unrealistically good. For example, the head of a company is subject to such illusions, who, despite steadily declining profits, continues to believe in the success of his business and its employees.

The ability to ignore obvious failures in this way may seem strange (as if a person is wearing rose-colored glasses), but theoretical works in psychology insist that some positive illusions are directly related to mental well-being. Illusions of this kind include the "illusion of control" - according to scientists, it is rarely observed in people with symptoms of depression.

The "illusion of control" is also a kind of positive thinking or even optimism. Therefore, if over and over again it seems to you that everything is under control (although in reality it is not so), then do not worry: most likely, everything is really not so bad with you.