Langer - Illusion of Control

7/28/2019 Langer - Illusion of Control

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Journal o j Personality and Social Psychology1 9 7 5 , Vol . 3 2 , N o . 2 , 3 1 1 - 3 2 8

The Illusion of ControlEllen J. LangerYale University

A series of studies w as conduc t ed to elucidate a phenomenon he re referred toas the "illusion of control ." An i l lusion of control was denned as an ex-pectancy of a personal success probabil i ty inappropriately higher than the ob-jec t ive probabi l i ty would warran t . I t was predicted tha t fac to r s f rom skill situa-tions (com petition, choice, fam iliarity, involvemen t) introdu ced into chancesi tuat ions cause individuals to feel inappropriately confident. In Study 1 sub-jects cut cards against ei ther a confident or a nervous competi tor; in Study 2lot tery part icipants were or were not given a choice of t icket ; in Study 3 lo t terypart ic ipants were or were not given a choice of either familiar or u n fami l i a rlo t t e ry t ickets; in Study 4, in a novel chance game, subjects either had or didnot have practice and responded ei ther themselves or by p r o x y ; in Study 5lot tery part icipants at a racetrack were asked their confidence a t different t imes ;final ly, in Study 6 lot tery part icipa nts ei ther received a single three-digit t icketor one digit on each of 3 days. Indicators of confidence in all six studies sup-ported the predic t ion .

While most people will agree tha t there ismuch overlap between skill and luck, a fullunderstanding of how inextr icably bound th etw o are has yet to be attained. In principleth e distinction seems clear. In skill situationsthere is a causal link between behavior andoutcome. Thus, success in skill tasks is con-trollable. Luck, on the other hand, is a for tui-tous happening. Success in luck or chanceactivities is apparently uncontrollable. Theissue of present concern is whethe r or notthis distinction is generally recognized. Theposition taken here is tha t it is not. Whilepeople may pay lip service to the concept ofchance, they behave as though chance eventsare subject to control. If this is correct, itis of interest to determine the variablesresponsible fo r this confusion.A number of di f ferent lines of researchprovide support for the position that people

This article is based on a doctoral dissertationsubmit ted to the D epar tmen t o f Psychology, YaleUniversi ty. Th e author would l ike to o f f e r specialthanks to her thesis advisor, Robert Abelson, andto Carol Dweck. She is also gratefu l to the membersof her commit tee , Judi th Rodin , Wil l iam Kessen,Irvin Child, and Dickon Repucci ; and to thosewho helped in conduct ing th e research, Je r ry Fields,Carol Marcus, Jane Roth, and Richard Hall.Requests fo r reprints should be sent to Ellen J.Langer, Graduate Center, City Universi ty of NewY ork , 33 West 42nd Street , N ew York City, N ewYork 10036.

assume a skill orientation in chance situa-tions. Studies concerned with th e j udgme n t ofcontingency, th e " jus t world hypothesis," orth e attr ibution of responsibility for an out-come all demonstrate either that people denyth e operation of chance or when they doappeal to chance as an explanation for anevent, this appeal is not simply a function ofan objective lack of contingency. A brieflook at some of this li terature helps to clarifythis point .In several laboratory studies, investigatorshave shown tha t adults often perceive causalrelationships in the absence of contingency.W a r d and Jenkins (1965) asked three groupsof subjects to judge, from a set of facts pre-sented in one of three ways, th e a moun t ofcontrol exerted by cloud seeding over rain-fall. The informat ion "seed" or "no seed"followed by "rain" or "no rain" w as presentedserially to one group of subjects, in an orga-nized numerical summary to a second group,and serially followed by an organized sum-mary to the third group. Although th e event,cloud seeding, w as chosen in order to suggestthe operation of chance, the only group thatsuccessfully judged th e lack of contingencywas the second group, which received the in-formation only in the summary form. Whenthe information w as presented over time, asis usually th e case in real life, subjects judgedcontingency when there was none. One might

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312 ELLEN J. L A N G E Ra rgue tha t th e reported inference of contin-gency was a response to the demand charac-teristics in the situation rather than a truereflection of what subjects actually believed.However , in a conceptually similar studyon psychodiagnosis , Chapman and Chapman(19 6 7 ) also found tha t subjects expecting tosee a relationship overlooked discontinuingevidence even when offered a $20 prize fo rbeing accurate.These and other researchers (e.g., Br un er& Revusky, 1961; Golding & Rorer , 1971;Smedslund, 1963; Starr & Katkin, 1969;Hamil ton & Gifford, Note 1) have providedclear evidence that there a re many s i tua t ionsin which people fail to accurate ly judge th elack of contingency. A n interest ing var ianto f this occurs in w h a t has been called th e" jus t world" hypothesis.A belief in a just wor ld is a belief tha tact ions and outcomes must have the samevalence. That is , good things happen topeople who do good things, and bad thingshappen to people who do bad things. Thebelief that everyone gets what he deservesdenies the operation of chance. It eliminatesth e necessity fo r concern and worry ove r th epossibility that aversive events may occur bychance at any t ime. Events become predic t-able and thus, by being ant ic ipated, a re of tencontrollable.In one of the first of these studies testingthe just wor ld hypothesis , Lerner (196Sb)asked subjects to evaluate tw o workers , oneo f whom w as for tui tously rewarded. In o r de rto make sense of this chance event, subjectsperceived the worker who was rewarded asmore capable. In a study by Lerne r andSimmons (1966), subjects witnessed a peerapparently receive severe shocks fo r ma k ingminor errors in a learning task. They foundthat subjects reject and devalue a sufferingvictim to make the negative consequencesseem deserved when they are unable to alterth e victim's fate. Landy and Ar onson( 1 9 6 9 ) , Lerner and Mathews (1967) , Rubinand Peplau ( 1 9 7 3 ) , Shaw and Skolnick( 1 9 7 1 ) , Simmons and Pi l iavin ( 1 9 7 2 ) , andWalster (1966) have also found suppor t fo rth e just world hypothesis. O ne expects goodpeople to do good things, and one expects

good things to happen to good people. As Lee( 1 9 71 ) said of a poker player in a discussionof luck, "If our hero did not win our estima-tion of him would decrease even though ob-jectively w e have to realize that getting fou rkings had nothing to do with any of hisqual i t ies" (p. 6 6 ) .Whether or not an event will be perceivedas determined by skill or chance may dependon factors re la t ive ly independen t of the actualcontingency. Cohen ( 1 9 6 4 ) ; Feather ( 1 9 6 9 ) ;Kelley ( 1 9 6 7 ) ; Langer an d Roth ( i n p re s s ) ;St reu fer t a n d St reufe r t ( 1 969 ) ; W e ine r ,Frieze, K ukla , Reed, Rest, and Rosenbaum( 1 9 7 1 ) ; a n d Wortman, Cos tanzo , a nd W i t t( 1 9 7 3 ) , fo r example, have a ll discussed th etendency fo r people to attr ibute desirableoutcomes to in te rna l factors but - t o b la meexternal factors such as luck fo r failures. Thevalence of the outcome would not be a potentfactor if people distinguished between chanceand skill on the basis of the object ivecontingency.Some observat ional suppor t for the asser-tion that people treat chance events as con-trollable comes f rom sociologists Goffman( 1 9 67 ) an d Henslin ( 1 9 6 7 ) . While s tudyinggambling practices in Las Vegas, Goffmannoted tha t dealers w ho experienced runs ofbad luck ran the risk of losing their jobs.Henslin studied dice playing and noted thatdice players clearly behave as if they werecontrolling the outcome of the toss. Theyare carefu l to th row th e dice softly if theyw a n t lo w n u m b e r s or to t h r ow ha r d fo r highnumbers . They believe t ha t effort and con-centrat ion will pay off . Control can also beexerted when be t t ing ; fo r example, alwaysbet with the person who looks l ike he hasthe most control. These behaviors are allquite rational if one believes that the g a m eis a game of skill.If one were going to try to exert controlover a chance event, one would exer t influ-ence before th e outcome of the event w asdetermined. Strickland, Lewicki, and K a tz(1966) tested this notion. Subjects were in -volved in a dice-throwing game in which theyselected f rom a numbe r of alternative wagerseither before th e dice were tossed or ju s taf ter the toss but before the outcome was


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THE I L L U S I O N OF C O N T R O L 313disclosed. They found tha t subjec ts tookgreater r isks, that is, placed larger bets, w henbetting b efore rather than a fter th e toss.The previous research shows that peopleof ten fail to respond differentially to con-trollable and uncontrollable events. However ,th e factors tha t govern this i l lusory con trolbehavior have not been studied systemati-cally. One way to identify these factors isto explore characteristics of skill situations.In skill situations people engag e in va riou sovert and covert behaviors designed to maxi-mize the pro bab ility of success: choosingwhich mater ia ls are appropr ia te for the situa-tion and which responses to make, famil iar-izing oneself with these materials and re-sponses, spending some time thinking aboutthe task to arrive at possible strategies thatmay be employed, and exerting effort whileactively engaged in the task to increase th echance of success. In addition, skill situationshave certain characteristics no t necessarilyinstigated by the individual in order to maxi-mize th e likelihood of success. Competition isone such fac tor .

These skill-related factors may be respon-sible for inducing an illusion of control . A nillusion of control is denned as an expectancyof a personal success probability inappropri-a te ly higher than the objec t ive prob abil i tywould warrant . The following studies weredesigned to assess th e effectiveness of theseskill-related factors in occasioning an illusionof con trol. Specifically, the research to bedescribed was designed to test the followinghypothesis: By encouraging or allowing par-ticipants in a chance event to engage in be-haviors that they would engage in were theyparticipating in a skill event, one increasesth e likelihood of inducing a skil l or ienta t io n;that is, one induces an illusion of control.Thus, one should be able to introduce anyof th e previously mentioned aspects of askill situation choice, stimulus or responsefamiliarity, passive or active involvement,competitioninto a chance situation whereth e par t ic ipants no longer influence th e out -come and occasion behavior m ore app ropr ia teto a skill event.A strong test of this hypothesis is the in t ro-duction of these factors into situations such

as lotteries, where the outcomes are com-ple te ly chance determ ined. If these fac tors aresuccessful in inducing an illusion of controlin these m echanical s ituat ions, then th e effectsshould be far greater when they are intro-duced into situations where there is alreadyan e lement of control.The following s tud ies were conduc ted w i thpeople of di f ferent ages, of different socio-economic sta tus , and of both sexes and, inall but one instance, took place in real-worldsettings. The first study investigated competi-tion. Subjects were engaged in a completelychance-determined card game where theydrew fo r high card against a confede ra te w how as either confident or nervous. In the secondstudy par t ic ipants in a lot tery w ere e i ther givenor not given their choice of lot tery t icket .In the third s tudy lot tery par t ic ipants againwere given either choice or no choice , and inaddit ion, s t imulus famil iar i ty w as var ied byusing famil iar or unf am il iar lot tery t ickets .The four th s tudy used a piece of equipmentthat enabled th e play of a chance game.Participants were either given or not giventhe opportunity to familiarize themselveswi th die response that was to be made. Inaddition, they were either to tell the experi-menter which response to make or to be moreactively involved by making th e responsethemselves. The fifth study tested th e effectsof passive involvement by asking par t ic ipantsin a lot tery a t Yonkers Raceway a t threedifferent points in t ime before th e drawinghow confident they were that they would w inthe lottery. In the sixth study a lottery wasconducted to assess again th e effects of pas-sive involvement. Participants either receiveda three-digit numbered lottery ticket on theday of purchase or received part of theirticket, one digit , on three successive days sothat they had to think about the lot tery ona t least three separate occasions.EXPERIMENT 1: EFFECTS OF C O M P E T I T I O N

O N T H E ILLUSION O F C O N T R O LSince people of ten engage in competi t ionwhen they are assessing their skills, it ishypothesized that th e introduct ion of thisskill-related factor into a chance setting


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314 E L L E N J. L A NGE Rinduces an illusion of controllability. Theamount of control one actually has in pro-ducing a successful outcome in skilled com-petition varies as a function of the ability ofone's opponent. If people respond to chanceevents in which there is competition as ifthese events were skill determined, then theillusion of control should also vary as afunction of characteristics of one's opponent.

In the following study subjects compete ina chance task against either an attractive,confident confederate or an awkward andnervous confederate. If the task is respondedto as if the outcome is uncontrollable, thenfactors other than the likelihood of winningplay a larger role in influencing subjects'bets. Under these circumstances, subjects arelikely to bet a lot when competing againstthe confident confederate either because theconfederate is expected to bet a lot and sub-jects want to appear similar to him or becauserisk is a value in our society (Wallach &Wing, 1968). Subjects may also bet a lotwhen playing against the awkward confeder-ate in order to appear d i f f e r e n t f r o m him or,again, because risk is a value. However, theymay also bet less when betting against theawkward confederate because he is expectedto bet less, so subjects can take less risk andstill appear to be risky. In either case, sub-jects should not bet more against the awk-ward confederate than against the confidentconfederate. On the other hand, if, as pre-dicted, competition induces a skill orientation,then subjects will bet on the basis of thelikelihood of winning. Since the less com-petent one's opponent is, the more likely oneis to win, subjects should wager more whencompeting against the awkward confederatethan when competing against the confidentconfederate.

MethodSubjects

Subjects were 36 male undergraduates enrolled inth e i n t roduc tory psychology course at Yale Unive r -sity. They were recrui ted by an adver t isement tha toffered course credit and a chance to win money fo rpar t ic ipa t ion in a s tudy on the rela t ionsh ip betweencognit ive and physiological responses. They wererandomly assigned to one of two exper imenta lcond itions, with 18 subjects in each.

ProcedureWhen each subject entered the room in which theexperiment was to take place, he fou n d wait ing aconfedera te posing as ano ther sub jec t . The confeder -a te , a male undergraduate bl ind to the exper imenta lhypothesis, played th e role of either a conf ident oran unconfident person (dapper or schnook cond i t ion) .Dapper condition. In this condition the confed-erate appea red conf iden t and ou tgo ing and wasdressed in a well-fi t t ing spor ts coa t . He in t roducedhimself to the subject and pointed out a s ign postedin the r o o m . The sign said t h a t th e e x p e r i m e n t e rw o u l d be r ight back and asked subjects to f i l l outa brief ques t ionna ire wh i le wai t ing. To ma ke thestudy appear to be concerned wi th physiologica lmat ters , the quest ionnaire asked about diet , fami lydiseases, and the l ike. The su b j e c t and the c o nfe d-

era te completed the f o r m and in teracted dur ing thistime fo r approximately 10 minutes. Th e conversa-t ion was uns t ruc tu red but focused m a i n l y on sportsevents. A f t e r this interaction th e confedera t e noncha -lantly knocked on the wal l t h a t separated himselfand the su b j e c t f rom the exper imente r to signal herto return to the r o o m .Schnook condition. In this condi t ion th e confed-era te appeared ra ther shy, behaved awkward ly , hada nervous tw i tch , and was dressed in a sports coattha t was t oo small fo r him. In al l other respectsthis condi t ion was ident ica l to the dap per condi t ion.In b oth condi t ions the con fede ra te removed hiscoa t before th e exper imenter entered th e r o o m . A f t e rshe apologized for being late, the experimenter in-s t ruc ted the sub jec t s to si t d o w n and no t ta lk whi leshe prepared the materials for the study. Byemploying these measures, i t was possible to keep th eexperimenter blind to the preceding experimentalmanipula t ion. The subject and the confedera te sat ata table facing each other . A f t e r th e exper imenterplaced a televolter , alcohol, gauze sponges, electrodes,electrode gel, and tape on the table, she recited thefo l lowing inst ruct ions:

We're interested in the e f f e c t s of cer ta in motor icand cognitive responses on physiological responses.Specifically, we' re in terested in changes in skinresistance as a funct ion of pressured and nonpres-sured tasks. The study w as designed so tha t , hope-fully, yo u wil l enjoy th e tasks while I get the in-f o rm a t ion I need. You' l l have the chance to eitherwin or lose m oney so i t should be f u n b u t there'sno gua ran tee t h a t you ' l l walk out of here wi thany extra money. Okay , now the f i r s t th ing Iwant you to do is tape these elect rodes to yourhands . I w a n t to put i t on the hand tha t y o udon' t wr i te with . Are you r ight or lef t handed?Do n ' t worry , none of th is wi l l h u r t . [The experi-mente r tapes electrodes, plugs in the televolter , andbrings out a deck of play ing cards. ]The first task is a card game. The rules are t h a tyou' l l each choose a card f rom the deck, and who-ever selects the higher card wins t h a t r o u n d .There will be f o u r rounds , and before each you ' l lwr i t e down how much you wan t t o bet. You can


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THE ILLUSION OF C O N T R O L 315wager anywhere f rom 0 to 25$ on each round.You' l l then show your bets to me but n ot toeach other. D o n ' t look at the card yo u choose.This way your bets and the outcomes won' tinfluence your physiological responses on the nexttask. I ' l l turn th e cards over fo r you and f igureout how m u c h was won o r lost later with each ofyou individua l ly . The bet t ing is just between eachof you and myself , so if you win I'll pay youand if you lose you'll pay me either in m o n e y orsub jec t t ime. Are you w illing to participate ?[Confederate quickly answers, "Sure."] Good , noww e can begin. Do n ' t wr i t e down your be t un t i lI say ready so t ha t I can get a baseline reading.The exper imenter then inst ructed subjects torecord their bets and show them to her . The betswere recorded, and then subjects a l terna tely drew a

card and, on request , s imul taneo usly showed themto the exper imenter , who recorded the outcome andthen placed the cards faced down on a nea rby table .Before each step the experimenter appeared to berecord ing skin resistance fluctuations. This procedurew as repeated fo r f ou r tr ials.Dependent Measure and Manipulation Check

The dependent measure was the amount of moneysubjects wagered on each round.A f t e r the card game was over, subjects were toldt ha t th e next task would be run individually, so t ha tone of the subjects would have to go to anotherroom where another exper imenter would give himinstructions. They were also told that once this ex-periment w as over , th is exper imenter would te l l th eo the r exper imenter th e ou tcome of the card gameso that th e debts could be settled. The exper imenterasked th e confedera te to leave and told him and thesub jec t to say goodbye to each other, since theirj o i n t participation w as over. Each subject w as thengiven an interpolated task so t h a t he won approxi-mately $2 regardless of his previous bets . The sub-j ec t examined a ja r of je l ly beans and estimated th en u m b e r present whi le the exper imenter recorded skinresistance fluctuations. Then the subject was givenanother quest ionnaire tha t w as physiological inna ture. A f t e r he was asked whether he thought th eother subject 's presence had any effect on his physio-logical responses, he was asked to rate th e othersubject o n a 6-point scale ranging f rom 1 (not verycompetent interpersonally) to 6 (very competentin terpersonally) . The remaining quest ions were filleri tems that related to physiological matters. A f t e rthese measures were obtained, all subjects werethanked and told to ca l l the author next month i fthey wanted to k n o w th e purpose and results o fth e s tudy.

ResultsBefore examining whether or not theam o u n t s o f money wagered varied as a func-tion of the competence of the confedera t e , it

i s impor tan t to make sure that th e confed-era te w as indeed perceived differentially inthe two conditions. The mean rating of theconfederate ' s competence was 4.8 when hew as supposed to be dapper and 3.17 when hew as playing a schnook. There w as almostno overlap between the two conditions. Thedifference between the two means is highlysignificant (t = S.46, p < .005). Therefore, itis safe to say that subjects in the dappercondi t ion saw themselves as competing againsta more competen t individual than subjects inth e schnook condit ion.It will be recalled that subjects could wagera n y w h e re f r om nothing to 25 0 on each of fou rrounds o f bett ing. These fou r bets were aver-aged to give a single score for each subject .The mean bet for subjects in the dapper con-dition w as 11.04 as compared with 16.2S fo rsubjects in the schnook condit ion (t = 2.39,p p < .OS). The second ques t ionnairedescribed the task and asked people howm u c h they thought they would wager on eachtrial. All of the 15 subjects asked respondedwith th e maximum wager ( 2 5 0 ) .EXPERIMENT 2 : EFFECTS OF CHOICE ON THEILLUSION O F C O N T R O L

Once again, i t was hypothesized that w h e na chance s i tuat ion mimics a skill situation,people behave as if they have control over th e


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316 ELLEN J. L A N G E Runcontrollable event even when th e fact thatsuccess or fai lure depends on chance is salient.A lottery provides a vehicle fo r studying thisillusion of control because, apart f rom th edecision of whether or not to buy a ticket,the outcome is entirely governed by chance.If one could exert control over th e outcomeof a lot tery , one would increase th e likeli-hood of having one's ticket selected. Thisticket would then be o f greater value than aticket belonging to someone witho ut this con-trol. And i f i t were of greater value, it thenfollows that o ne would require a higher pricefrom a potential buyer .In the following study a lo t tery w as con-ducted to assess the effects of choice, animpor tant factor in a skill situation, on theillusion of control. It was predicted that sub-jects w ho were given their choice of lo t teryticket would require a higher price for it .

MethodSubjects

Th e lot tery tickets were made ava i lable to a d u l tm a le and female office worker s em ploy ed by one oftwo f i rms loca ted in Long Is land, an in su ranceagency and a m a n u f a c t u r i n g c o m p a n y .1 Since vari-ous drawings and sports pools were no t u n c o m m o nto these offices, an e labora te jus t i fi ca t ion for r u n n i n gth e present lot tery was unnecessary. W i t h th e excep-t ion of f o u r females, a l l people approached by thea l leged t icket agent purchased lot tery t ickets . Sub-jects were randomly ass igned to condit ions with th eresul t that the re were 24 males and 3 females in thechoice condi t ion and 23 males and 3 females in theno-choice condi t ion.MaterialsT h e lottery tickets w e re s ta n d ar d 4 X 2 i nc h(10.16 X 5 . 0 8 c m ) footba l l cards . O n each carda p p e a r e d a f am ous f oo tba l l p lay er , h is n a m e , andhis t eam . The cards were a lphabet ica l ly a r rangedfirst by t e a m n a m e and then by the individualplayer ' s name. There were tw o m a t c h e d sets o ft ickets , each compris ing 227 footba l l cards . Eachsubject kept th e t icket f rom one se t whi le th e sameticket f rom th e other se t was deposited in a ca rd -boa rd ca r ton f rom which th e winn ing t i cke t wou ldla ter be selected.Procedure

The lot tery w as conduc ted by a male employeeof the insurance agency and a female employee of1The firms wish to r em a in anony m ous .

the m anuf ac tu r ing firm 1 week pr ior to the 1973Superbowl game. Both exper imenters were bl ind toth e hypotheses of the study. They each approachedthe m em bers o f thei r respective offices and askedthem if they wished to purchase a lot tery t icketcosting $1. Subjects were told that th e t ickets w e r ebeing sold in both their office and in ano ther o f f i c e( the other office w as n a m e d ) and t h a t th e ent i repot , approximately $50, would go to the w i n n e r .Subjects were a l so in f orm ed of the date of thedrawing . A f t e r having agreed to enter th e lo t t e ry ,the f irst sub jec t approached w as given the box ofca rds a n d told to select th e t i cke t ( s ) he w a n t e d .The sub jec t nam ed th e card so that th e e x p e r i m e n t e rcould select th e same card f rom th e second set anddepos i t i t in the closed carton. A t this t ime th eexper imenter a lso recorded th e subject ' s name andth e card selected. The second sub jec t approachedw as t rea ted in the sam e m anner excep t that a f t e ragreeing to en te r th e lottery, he or she was handeda card which matched th e choice of the preced ingsub jec t . Subjects were thus a l terna tely placed in thechoice or no-choice condi t ion. The day af te r th et ickets were sold in one office, the s am e p roc edu rewas carried out in the second office.Dependent Measure

A ll sub jec t s were ind iv idua l ly approached by theexper im en te r f r o m w h o m they purchased their t icketthe m orn ing o f the lo t t e ry d rawing . T hey were eacht o ld : "Som eone in the o ther office wanted to ge tin to th e lot tery , bu t since I 'm no t selling tickets a nym o r e , he asked me if I 'd f ind out how m u c h y o u ' dsel l your t icket for . It m a k e s no difference t o me ,bu t how m u c h s h o u l d I tell h i m ? " T h e a m o u n tquoted cons t i tu ted th e dependen t m easure . In theeven t tha t a subject sa id that he w o u l d no t sell h ist icket , th e exper im en te r w a s ins tructed to p r o d h imun t i l h e gave a f igure and then to r ecord the re-sponse "won't sel l" a longs ide of the amount hef inal ly offered.ResultsA s predicted, th e choice manipulat ion hada considerable effect on the value of thelottery ticket. The mean amo unt of mo neyrequired for the subjec t to sell his t icket w as$8.67 in the choice condition and only$1.96 in the no-choice condition (t = 4.33,p < .005). Although they were asked howmuch they would sell their ticket fo r ra therthan if they would sell, IS subjects ini t ia l ly

responded tha t they would not sell. O f these,10 subjects were in the choice condition andfive in the no-choice condition (p < .10).The difference previously cited, however, w asno t simply a funct ion of the amounts quo tedby these subjects af ter prodding, since their


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THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL 317responses ranged f r o m $3 to the entire pot of$53, with only 3 subjects in the last category.

While not specifically tested until the fol-lowing study, one of the results obtained inthis study concerns the e f fec t of familiarityon the illusion of control. Females are not aslikely as males to be familiar with the gameof football. Hence, they should be less likelyto enter the lottery in the first place, and ifthey do enter, they should require less moneyto sell their ticket. It should be recalled thatonly f o u r persons refused to participate in thelottery and that each of them was female.O f the six females that did enter, f o u r asked$1 and two asked $2 for their tickets. Thusthe mean amount for females was $1.33 ascompared with $5.89 for males (t =2.14,p < .05).E X P E R I M E N T 3: THE EFFECTS O F STIMULUS

FAMILIARITY ON THE ILLUSION OFCONTROL AN D A REPLICATION OF

THE EFFECTS OF CHOICEIn a skill situation one does not feel much

control if the object to be controlled is un-familiar. Under those circumstances one doesnot know what strategies to rehearse or whatresponses will bring about the desired out-come. The same result is assumed to obtainin a chance situation; that is, familiarity isexpected to increase the illusion of control.Once again a lottery was employed to testthis assumption. The lottery tickets wereeither familiar (letters of the alphabet writtenon index cards) or unfamiliar (line drawingsof novel symbols). Subjects were given theopportunity to keep their original ticket orto trade it in for a ticket in a lottery wherethe chances of winning were better. Sincethis was seen as a stronger measure of illusorycontrol than that used in the last study,choice was once again manipulated. Thus thefollowing study utilized a 2 X 2 factorialdesign with familiarity and choice as therelevant variables.

MethodSubjects

A ll subjects were adult males w ho were employedby th e same two firms as those used in Study 2.There w ere 13 subjects who w ere random ly assignedto each of the f o u r conditions in basically the same

manner as in the last s tudy . O f these, 5 subjectsin each condition had participated in the previouslottery.Materials

Two separate lot teries were run simultaneously.Th e lottery t ickets were pieces of whi te cardboard2 X 3 inches (S.08 X 7.62 cm ) with th e words "lot-tery t icket" printed on them. For the famil iar set oftickets, one letter was printed on each of 26 cards.For the unfamiliar set, 1 of 26 esoteric symbolsmodeled after symbols that printers use appeared oneach card. There were two sets of each kind ofticket.Procedure

Th e male experimenter of the last study served asth e experimenter for the present investigation. Hispresence in either establishment was not unusual, sincehe was currently employed by one of the f irms andw as previously employed by the other . The experi-menter w as blind to the major hypotheses of thestudy. The rules for both of the present lotterieswere the same: The pot was f ixed at $25, eacht icket cost $1, and only one ticket w as allowed percustomer. The subjects were given these rules andwere also i n fo rmed t h a t there were only 26 t icketsavailable. Subjects were only aware of one lotterya t this time.Subjects in each firm were approached individuallyby th e experimenter w ho randomly assigned them toei ther th e choice or no-choice condition in one of thetw o lotteries. The assignment to condition w ascarr ied out in such a way that each subject inthe choice condition had at least seven t ickets f romwhich to choose and both firms were similarly repre-sented in each condit ion. Subjects in choice condi-t ions were given th e cards and told to make theirow n selection. Af t e r so doing, they were asked th ereason for their choice. A ll subjects kept their ticketswhile a duplicate w as placed in a carton (separatefo r each lottery) for the drawing.

Dependent MeasureTh e experimenter contacted all subjects by tele-phone 2 days before th e drawing. Th e apparentreason for the call varied from subject to subject.Af t e r approximately S minutes of conversation th eexperimenter casually brought up the topic of thelottery:

Y ou bough t a lot tery t icket didn ' t y o u ? I w a srunning out of lot tery t ickets in the lottery you' rein , so I started another separate lottery on thesame basis with a fixed pot of $2S. Twenty-s ixpeople bo ugh t tickets in the lottery you're in and20 people bought tickets in the other lot tery. Itm akes no difference to me, but i f you'd l ike, I canexchange y o ur ticket for one in the other pool.By the way, don' t mention this to anybody . [Thislast sentence w as included so that it would appear


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318 ELLEN J. L A N G E RT A BL E 1

P R O P O R T I O N O F S U B JE C T S W H O W A N T E D T O KEEPO R I G I N A L TICKET, S T U D Y 3Condition Letter SymbolChoiceN o choice .62.38 .38.1 5

Note, n = 15 per cell.

as if the o f f e r were being made ava i lable only tothis sub jec t . ]The dependent var iable then was whether or notth e sub jec t wan ted to exchange his t icket whenhis object ive chances of winn ing were 1 in 26 for at icket in ano ther poo l where his object ive chanceso f winn ing would be 1 in 21.In the event tha t the subject wanted to buy at icket in the second lottery and keep his f irst t icketas well, he was told t h a t he could only be inone or the other, since those were th e rules th eexper im en te r had init ially laid down.

ResultsBoth stimulus familiarity and choice yieldedth e predicted effects on the probabi l i ty ofkeeping th e original ticket. Table 1 shows th e

proport ion of subjects in each condition w hochose to keep their original ticket rather thanimprove their chances of winn ing by enteringth e other lot tery. These scores were trans-formed into arc sines, and the analysis ofvariance yielded Z scores = 1.83 (p < .05,one-tai led) fo r both th e m ai n effect of thefamiliari ty variable and the choice m a-nipulat ion.2If one examines the responses of subjectsin the choice condition of the letter lotteryas a func t ion of the n u m b er of tickets avail-able when given this choice, th e effects ofchoice for a familiar st imulus appear evenst ronger than those suggested above. Fourout of the f ive subjects in this condition whowanted to make the trade were the last sub-jects sampled. Thus, they had the smallestn u m b e r o f tickets f ro m which to choose.Each subject w ho gave a reason for hischoice later chose to keep his original ticket.Five subjects chose letters that stood for theirlast names, one selected th e initial for his

2 See Langer and Abelson (1972) for a discussionof the use of the arc s ine t r ansforma t ion in thiscontext .

wife's f irst name, one wanted the f irst letterin th e alphabet , and one wanted th e last .Simply stat ing a reason, however, was no t anecessary condition for the subject to keephis ticket. N o subjects in the choice condi-tion in the symbol lottery gave reasons fortheir choices, although several kept theiroriginal ticket.

E X P E R I M E N T 4: E F F E C T S OF R E S P O N S EF A M I L I A R I T Y A N D A C T I V E I N V O L V E M E N T

O N THE ILLUSION OF C O N T R O LTh e present study employed a piece ofequipment t h a t could be p ro g ram m ed to dis-

t r ibute outcomes randomly. The s tudy a t-tempted to determine whether or not famil-iar i ty wi th th e response one is required tomake induces th e illusion of control. Responsefamil iar i ty , or practice, increases one's controlin skill si tuations; thus, it is predicted thatth e same result will obtain in a chance sett ing.In addition to the ma nipulation of fam iliarity ,the level of active involvement w as varied.In skill situations, th e m o re one actively par-ticipates in the even t , th e more contro l onehas over th e outcome. Hence, it is predictedthat the greater one's active involvement ina chance event, the grea ter the i l lusion ofcontrol .

MethodSubjects

There were 13 adu l t female and 2 adul t maleemployees of the Southern N ew England TelephoneCompany in each of four conditions. Subjects wereapproached whi le e i ther on a lunch or c o f f e e breakby the au thor and were asked to par t ic ipa te in somemarket ing research by examining a p r o d u c t in anearly stage of d e v e l o p m e n t and then answer ing afe w questions about it . Subjects were then escor tedto a room in which there were signs bear ing th en a m e "Inst rumenta l Organo n Co rpora t ion" ( thename w as chosen to accoun t for the IOC pr in tedon th e appara tus ) and introduced to a female experi-mente r who randomly assigned them to one of theexperimental t rea tments. The exper imente r w as bl indto the hypotheses being tested.Apparatus

The IOC appa ra tus is a 17 X 17 X 4.5 inch (43.18X 43.18 X 11.43 cm ) black wooden box wi th anepoxy glass top on which three interconnected pa thsar e etched in copper (see Figure 1). Th e apparatushas a sty lus which when placed on one of the paths,m ay com plete a circuit and ring a b uzz er. There are


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THE ILLUSION OF C O N T R O L 319

F I G U R E 1. Illusion of control appara tus . (In the actual experiment the subjectis situated on the side of the apparatus opposite to the switches.)10 switches located at the side of the box, whichm ay be preset to determine which path on eachof the 10 trials will be activated by the stylus. Abuzzer will sound if the stylus is on the selectedpath for m o r e than 10 sec; however, i t may soundalmost immediately on contact. (The motor-operatedswitch closes th e circuit fo r a b o u t 2 out of everyten sec.) There is a selector switch which gives th eoption for all or none of the paths to be active.When set so t ha t all of the paths are active, thebuzzer will sound no mat ter which path the stylusis on; when set so that the paths are interactive,the buzzer will disengage.Procedure

Th e present study uti l ized a 2 X 2 factorial designto evaluate the relative effects of involvement andfamiliarity. Involvement w as manipulated in thefollowing w a y :High involvement. Subjects were shown the threepaths on the machine and were told that the ma-chine was prepro gram me d so tha t on a rand om basiswhen th e stylus was on just one of these paths abuzzer would sound at some point while the pathw as being traveled. Th e object of the game was toguess the path t ha t they thought would set off thebuzzer on that tr ial and travel down this path withth e stylus. With th e machine turned off, th e experi-menter demonstra ted th e task.Low involvement. In the low-involvement condi-tions th e experimenter, rather than th e subject, m a-nipulated th e stylus on the route t ha t th e subjecthad preselected. The instructions and demonstrationwere otherwise the same as above.

After th e appara tus w as shown and the taskexplained to the subjects, familiari ty was ma-nipulated.High familiarity. In the high-familiarity condi-tions, th e subject w as told that th e plug on themachine had just broken and had to be repairedbefore they could start. The experimenter suggestedthat the subject become familiar with the machineand practice while she repaired the damage. Theexperimenter took approximately 2 minutes to restoreth e plug to working order.Low familiarity. In the low-familiari ty conditionssubjects began the task withou t this fam iliarizationperiod.

Dependent MeasuresBefore th e trial on the apparatus, all subjects wereasked to rate how confident they were that theywould select th e correct path on a 10-polnt scaleranging from 1 (very unsure) to 10 (pretty cer ta in) .Subjects were then given a successful trial on theappara tus, which was fol lowed by a quest ionnaire.The relevant question asked subjects to rate howtheir per formance on the appara tus would comparewith that of a champion chess player if they wereeach given five trials. The scale used ranged from 1(much worse) to 10 (much be t t e r ) . All other i temswere filler questions centering around th e marke t -abili ty of the product.Results

Table 2 presents th e mean pre tr ia l confi-dence rat ings for the fou r groups. The ana ly-


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320 ELLEN J. LANGERT A B L E 2

MEAN PEETRIAL CONFIDENCE RATINGS OF SUC-C E S S O N ILLUSION O F CONTROL A P P A R A T U S ,S T U D Y 4

F a m i l i a r i t y I n v o l v e m e n tH ig h L o wHighLow 6.07S.67 5.673.80

Note, n = 15 per cell.

sis of the var iance of these ratings yieldedsignificant main effects fo r both famil iar i tyand invo lvemen t , F(l, 56) = 4.71, p < .05, inboth cases.Simi lar resul ts were obtained in responseto the quest ion that asked subjects to com-pare their expected perfo rm anc e w ith tha tof a champion chess player. Table 3 presentsthe mean ra t ings fo r this question for thefour groups. Once again the analysis yieldedsignificant main effects fo r bo th f ami l i a r i tyand involvement: for famil iar i ty , F(l, 56)= 7.33, p


11/18

THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL 321S4 females and 88 males were approached; and inTime Per iod 3 , 62 females and 83 males wereap p roach ed .I f anyone quest ioned what the pr ize would be ,h e or she was told that the e x p e r i m e n t e r did notknow but that last week three color television setsw e r e given away. The racet rack official a n n o u n c e dth e pr ize for the fo l lowin g week o n tw o occasions:once af ter the f i r s t race but b e fo r e the f i f th andonce after the fifth race but before the ninth. Im-mediate ly af ter the seventh race , both the pr ize forthe present drawing and the pr izs for the fu tu r edrawing were ment ioned. The f i r s t par t of themessage r eg ard in g th e p r e sen t d r awin g , h owev er ,was v i r tual ly masked b y shouts f r o m the winnersand losers of the last race .

ResultsTable 4 presents th e mean confidencerat ings fo r both male and female subjectsat the t h ree different poin t s in t ime. Theanalysis of var iance of these data yielded asignificant m a i n effect fo r t ime, ^(2,403)= 4.09, p < .05, and for sex of subject ,F(l, 403) = 7.S8, p < .01. One of the degreesof freedom of the time variable w as used tode te rmine whe the r the m a i n effect fo r t imewas due to an increase in confidence fromPeriods 1-3. The t rend analysis yielded anF(l,403) - 7.94, p < .01. Thus both sexestend to b e c om e m or e conf ident over t ime,and females appear t o be more conf ident thatthey will w in than males.

EXPERIMENT 6: EFFECTS OF PASSIVEI N V O L V E M E N T ON THE ILLUSION OF

C O N T R O L I N A CONTROLLEDFIELD STUDYIn the last s tudy , confidence in winningappeared to increase over t ime. However ,since there was no way to control for thepresence of different types of sub jec t s at theracetrack a t di f fe rent poin t s in t ime, the re-sults m ay have been ar t i fac tual . In o r d e r toretest the predic t ion that an increase in pas-sive involvement increases th e illusion of con-t rol under more control led c i rcumstances, an-o the r s tudy was conduc ted . Involvement inth e presen t inves t iga t ion w as m a n i p u l a t e d by

encouraging half of the p a r t i c i p a n t s in al o t t e ry to th ink about the lo t t e ry on th reeseparate occasions and not encouraging ther ema in ing part ic ipants. As in the thi rd s tudyin this series, the i l lusion of control was mea-

TABLE 4MEAN CONFIDENCE RATINGS ATRACETEACK, STUDY 5

SexMaleFemale

Ti3.144.10

T i m eTz3.3S3.92

Ti4.055.11

Note. Higher n u m b e r s indicate greater conf idence .sured by each subject 's wil l ingness to tradeh is original t icket for a t icket in a lot terywhere the objective chances of winning werebet ter . In addit ion, subjects were asked tora te the i r confidence that their t icket wouldbe selected. The prediction is that subjectsin the high-involvem ent condi tion would b eless l ikely to trade than subjects in thelow-involvement condit ion and that high-involvement subjects would report being moreconfident of winning .

MethodSubjectsA d u l t male and f e m a le office work e r s affi l ia tedwith several di f fe ren t companies located in oneb u i ld in g in N ew York se rv ed as su b jec t s . They w e r eap p roach ed by a male execut ive associated wi th o neof the f irms located in the bui ld ing and asked if theyw a n t e d to par t ic ipate in a lo t tery. (The exper imenterw as bl ind to the exper im ental hypo theses.) Thosew h o com plied were rando mly assigned to e ither thehigh- or low-involvement condition. If more thano ne person occupied a g iven office, they were eachassigned to the same exper imental condi t ion . N owork e r wh o sh a r ed an office with more th an th r eepeople was included in the study. There were 17males and S females in the high- involvement condi-tion and 14 males and S females in the low-involve-

ment condi t ion .ProcedureSubjects were asked i f they wished to par t ic ipatein an office lottery where the t ickets cost $1, onlyo ne t icket w a s al lowed p er cu s tomer , and the ent i repot went to the winner. Tickets were sold on Mon-day, and the d r awin g took p l ace on the Fr id ay o fth a t week .High involvement. Su b j ec t s in the h igh- involve-m e n t con d i t i on were to ld tha t they w ould get the i rthree-digit lottery ticket in installments. It wasexpla ined t h a t t h e y w o u l d b e given thei r f irst dig i tthat day, the second d ig i t the next day, and theth i rd an d l a s t d ig i t t h e d ay a f t e r . I t was mad e clearthat th e order th e n u mb er s were in w as f ixed .Low involvement. Su b jec t s in the low- involvementcond ition were given their three-digit lottery t icketon the day of purchase .


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322 ELLEN J. L A N G E RDependent Measures

The day before or the morn ing of the d r a w i n g ,a ll subjec ts were approached individual ly by theperson f rom whom they pu rchased t he i r ticket. A f t e ra few minu te s of casual conversat ion , th e lot teryw as ment ioned. The sub j ec t w a s to ld that the de-mand for lo t te ry tickets exceeded the supply. Theexper imenter the re fo re had s tar ted another lo t te ryw h e r e the pot was f ixed a t $25, each t icket cost $1,one ticket was issued per customer, and the drawingwas again to be held on Friday. The subjec t w asf u r t h e r in formed that 25 people h a d bought t icketsin th e lo t te ry he was in so that there was $25 inthe pot and that only 20 people were in the otherlottery. "It makes no difference to me but if you 'dlike, I can exchange your t icket for one in the o therlo t tery , but please don't mention this to anybody."The p r imary dependen t measu re was whe the r o r no tthe subject wanted to trade his t icket in orderto objectively increase his chances of winning. Sub-jects who wanted to t rade were revis i ted short lya f ter this by the experimenter , w ho apologized tothem and explained that the remain ing t ickets hadbeen lost so that th e t rade wou ld not be possible.A l l subjec ts w ere approached again on the af ter-n o o n of the drawing and were asked to f ill out aone-question quest ionnaire for a survey on the officelottery. The question asked, "How sure are you thaty o u r ticket will be selected?" Subjects were askedto indicate the i r answer by c i rc ling a nu m ber o n a10-point scale that ranged f rom 1 (not sure a t a l l )to 10 (pre t ty good chance).

ResultsA s predicted , subjects in the high-involve-m e n t condit ion were less l ikely to accept th eoffer to improve their chances of winning thanw e re subjects in the low-involvement condi-t ion. This may be seen in Table 5, where then u m b er o f people in each condit ion w ho

elected to either keep or trade their ticket ispresented as a func t ion of the level of involve-m e n t . Of the high-involvement group, 63.6%of the subjects chose to keep their originalticket, while only 31.6% of the low-involve-m e n t group e lec ted this opt ion. A chi -squareTABLE 5

N U M B E R or PEOPLE WHO DECIDED TO KEEP OR TEADFTHEIR TICKET AS A FUNCTION or LEVELO F I N V O L V E M E N T , S T U D Y 6

Decision InvolvementH i g h L o wKeepTrade 14 613

analysis indicates that this difference is sig-nif icant at p < .05 (x2= 4.19).In response to the question "How sure areyou that your t icket wil l be selected?" themean response for the high-involvement groupw as 6.4S (on a scale in which higher numbersreflect greater ce r t a i n t y ) , while th e m e a n fo rthe low-involvement group was only 3,00. Thedifference between the two means is highlysignificant (t = 4.16, / > < .005). Subjectswere asked whether or no t t hey wanted totrade their t icket prior to the t ime they gavethis confidence rating. Thus, it was possiblethat this difference wa s a func t ion o f subjects 'earl ier responses rather than a separate m e a -sure of i l lusory control . That is , subjectsmight have justified keeping their ticket bygiving a higher ra t ing. Therefore , anotheranalysis w as carried out in which only th erat ings of subjects in the two groups whosemembers chose to keep their original ticketswere compared . The mean rat ing in this casefo r the high-involvement condit ion was 8.36as compared wi th a mean ra t ing of 3.67 forthe low-involvement group (t = 4 . I S , p

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Langer - Illusion of Control

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