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In an intriguing set of studies,Langer (1975) showed that peopleoften overestimate their controleven in situations governed purely

by chance. In one of Langer s stud-ies, some people were allowed topick their own lottery ticket, and

others got a ticket picked for them.Later, participants were given theoption of exchanging their ticketfor one in a lottery with more fa-vorable odds. Despite the fact thatexchanging the ticket increased theodds of winning, those who had se-lected their own lottery ticket num-

ber did not choose to exchange thispersonally chosen ticket. Peopleseemed to think that choosing theirown ticket increased their odds ofwinning as if their action ofchoosing their own ticket gavethem some control over the out-come of the lottery. Similar illusionsof control have been demonstratedin a variety of circumstances.

Alloy and Abramson (1979) ex-tended the study of illusory control

by manipulating factors that affectillusory control and measuring par-

ticipants judgments of control. Inthese studies, people tried to get a

green light to come on by pushinga button. They were told that thebutton might control the light, but,in actuality, there was no relation-ship between participants actionsand whether the light came on. Thelight came on 25% of the time forparticipants in the low-reinforce-ment condition and 75% of the timefor those in the high-reinforcementcondition, regardless of how oftenor when the button was pushed.Estimates of personal control over

the light were quite high in thehigh-reinforcement conditionequivalent to a moderate to inter-mediate degree of control.

Do people always overestimatetheir control? Evidently not. Youmay have noted in the studies justdescribed that the illusions of con-trol occurred for people who select-ed their own lottery tickets or whowere in the high-reinforcementcondition. Participants in the otherconditions were not so susceptibleto thinking they had control. Bothsituational and person-based fac-tors influence whether or not peo-ple will overestimate their control.

WHEN DO PEOPLE

OVERESTIMATE CONTROL?

Copyright ' 1999 American Psychological Society

Illusions of Control: How We

Overestimate Our Personal InfluenceSuzanne C. Thompson1

Department of Psychology, Pomona College, Claremont, California

AbstractIllusions of control are

common even in purelychance situations. They areparticularly likely to occur insettings that are characterized

by personal involvement, fa-miliarity, foreknowledge ofthe desired outcome, and afocus on success. Person-

based factors that affect illu-sions of control include de-pressive mood and need forcontrol. One explanation of il-lusory control is that it is dueto a control heuristic that isused to estimate control by as-sessing the factors of inten-tionality and connection to

the outcome. Motivational in-fluences on illusory controland consequences of overesti-mating one s control are alsocovered.

Keywordsillusions of control; perceivedcontrol

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Situational factors include per-sonal involvement, familiarity,foreknowledge of the desired out-come, and success at the task.Personal involvement refers tosomeone being the active agent asopposed to having others act for

him or her. When people act forthemselves, illusory control is like-ly, but when no personal action isinvo lve d for example, whensomeone else selects their ticketsor throws the dice for t he m t hesense of being able to control theoutcome is greatly diminished.Familiarity is another important in-fluence on illusions of control.When circumstances or the materi-als being worked with are familiar,it is easier to have inflated judg-

ments of personal control thanwhen the situation or task is new.Foreknowledge of the desired outcome,the extent to which people knowthe outcome they want when theyact, is a third condition that affectswhether or not personal controlwill be overestimated. In a predic-tion situation, actors know whichoutcome they want to achievewhen they act. In contrast, in apostdiction situation, the action istaken before the actors know the

outcome they would like. Illusionsof control are stronger in predic-tion than in postdiction situations.Success at the task has a major in-fluence on whether or not person-al control is overestimated.Success versus failure has some-times been manipulated experi-mentally by the number of timespeople get the outcome they aretrying to achieve (e.g., the lightcomes on 75% vs. 25% of the time).Although the outcome is randomand not in response to partici-pants behavior, participants whoget the outcome they want at ahigh rate have significantly andsubstantially higher estimates oftheir control than those who getthe desired outcome at a low rate.People are also more likely tooverestimate their control if the

task involves acting to get a de-sired outcome than if the point isto avoid losing what they have.Evidently, the former type of taskleads to a focus on successes andthe latter highlights the losses.Even the patterning of successes

and failures can affect the focus onsuccess or failure. A string of earlysuccesses leads to higher estimatesof personal control than does astring of early failures, even if thetotal number of successes over theentire session is the same.

The person factors that have aneffect on illusory control includemood and need for control. Inmany circumstances, nonde-pressed individuals tend to overes-timate their control, whereas those

who are in a depressed mood have amore realistic assessment of theirability to control an outcome(Alloy & Abramson, 1979). Theseeffects are found even when moodis manipulated experimentally.Nondepressed participants whoare put in a depressed moodthrough a mood-induction tech-nique make control judgmentssimilar to those of participantswho are chronically depressed(Alloy, Abramson, & Viscusi,

1981). Although the topic has notbeen studied extensively, there issome indication that a strong need

for control can also lead people tooverestimate their potential to af-fect outcomes. In an experimentaldemonstration of the effects ofneed for control, participants whowere randomly assigned to ah un gr y condition were more

likely than participants in as at ed condition to think they

could control a chance task forwhich a hamburger was a prize(Biner, Angle, Park, Mellinger, &Barber, 1995).

To sum up, people do not al-ways overestimate their control,but when the situation is one that isfamiliar and focused on success,when the desired outcome isknown and people are taking ac-

tion for themselves, the setup isripe for illusory control. In addi-tion, nondepressed individuals andthose with a need for the outcomeare particularly prone to overesti-mate their control.

The question of why illusions ofcontrol occur was first addressed by Langer (1975), who proposedthat skill and chance situations areeasily confused. This confusion isespecially likely to happen whenchance situations have the trap-pings that are characteristic of skill-

based situations (e.g., familiarity,choice, involvement). However,there are several reasons why aconfusion of skill and chance situa-tions is not by itself a good expla-nation for the variety of conditionsunder which illusions of controlappear. For example, the factorsthat increase illusory control are broader than ones that reflect aconfusion between chance and con-trollable situations. Illusory controlis also more likely in situations that

involve a focus on success ratherthan failure, as well as among indi-viduals who are in a positive ratherthan depressed mood and whohave a need for control. Also, feed- back that highlights failures andnegative moods can eliminate orreverse illusory judgments of con-trol. None of these effects is easilyexplained by a confusion of skilland chance elements.

My colleagues and I have of-fered a more complete explana-tion of why illusions of controloccur (Thompson, Armstrong, &Thomas, 1998). We propose thatpeople use a control heuristic tojudge their degree of influence overan outcome. A heuristic is a short-cut or simple rule that can be usedto reach a judgment, in this case, anestimate of one s control over

WHY DO PEOPLEOVERESTIMATE THEIR

CONTROL?

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CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 189

achieving an outcome. The controlheuristic involves two elements:one s intention to achieve the out-come and the perceived connection between one s action and the de-sired outcome. Both intention andconnection are cues that are used to

judge how much control one has. Ifone intended an outcome and cansee a connection between one sown action and the outcome, thenperceptions of personal control arehigh.

Like most heuristics, this simplerule will often lead to accurate judgments because intentionalityand a perceived connection (e.g.,seeing that the outcome immedi-ately follows one s action) oftenoccur in situations in which one

does, in fact, have control.However, the heuristic can alsolead to overestimations of controlbecause intentionality and connec-tion can occur in situations inwhich a person has little or no con-trol. For example, gamblers playingthe slot machines in Las Vegas pullthe handles with the intention ofgetting a winning combination toslide into place. When their handlepulling is followed by the desiredoutcome, a connection is estab-

lished between their action and theoutcome. Because intentionalityand connection are strong, thestage is set for gamblers to thinkthat they have some control in thissituation.

The control heuristic provides aunifying explanation for all of thevarious factors that have beenfound to affect illusions of control.Each is influential because it af-fects perceived intentionality orthe connection between one s be-havior and the outcome. For exam-ple, personal involvement is essen-tial for the illusion of controlbecause connection between anactor s actions and an event cannotbe observed or imagined unlessthe actor acts. Foreknowledge isimportant for illusory control be-cause without it the actor cannot

intend to effect a particular out-come. Success-focused tasks in-crease illusions of control becausethese circumstances lead actors tooverestimate the connection be-tween their action and the success-ful outcome. They do this because

compared with tasks focusing onfailure, success-oriented tasks pro-duce more instances in which ac-tors actions are followed by thedesired outcome and becausethese types of tasks direct attentionto success; both of these factors in-crease perceptions of the numberof positive confirming cases.Failure experiences and a focus onlosing have the opposite effect byhighlighting the times when ac-tors behavior is not followed by

the desired outcome, therebyweakening the perception of con-nection. Depressed mood may beassociated with lower assessmentsof personal control because peoplewho are depressed focus on fail-ure, not on success. Because of thisfocus on failure, they are less like-ly than nondepressed people tonotice and overestimate the con-nection between their own behav-ior and successes.

Because the benefits of believingoneself to have control (e.g., posi-tive mood and increased motiva-tion) may be realized even if one scontrol is illusory, it seems reason-able to suggest that people areoften motivated to overestimatetheir control. Some recent studiesin my lab have examined the effectsof a motive for control on illusorycontrol judgments. Participantsworked on a computer task thatwas similar to the light task de-scribed earlier. Motive for controlwas manipulated by paying someparticipants for each time a greencomputer screen appeared. Despite

the fact that participants had nocontrol, the motive for control hada strong effect on control judg-ments: Participants who were paidfor each appearance of the greenscreen had significantly higher per-ceptions of control than partici-

pants lacking this motive.According to the control-heuris-tic model, motives for control affectjudgments of control by biasing ei-ther judgments of intentionality orjudgments of connection. For ex-ample, believing that one couldhave foreseen the outcome height-ens a sense of acting intentionally.Therefore, for individuals who aremotivated to have control, judg-ments of intentionality can beheightened through the hindsight

bias, in which individuals overesti-mate the degree to which theycould have anticipated an out-come. Counterfactuals, or imag-ined alternative outcomes to anevent, are another route for a con-trol motive to increase illusions ofcontrol. Perceptions of connectioncan be strengthened through theuse of controllable counterfactualsbecause imagining undoing an-tecedents that are controllable bythe actor heightens the connection

between action and outcome. Forexample, a lottery winner whothinks, I f I hadn t thought to buythat ticket, I wouldn t have won$1,000 highlights the connectionbetween her action and the desiredoutcome, whereas imagining acounterfactual with an uncontrol-lable element would lessen theconnection.

Not all people overestimate theirpersonal control. Moderately de-pressed individuals tend to have arealistic sense of how much theyare contributing to an outcome.Does that mean that people are bet-

THE CONSEQUENCES OFILLUSORY CONTROL

DOES WANTING TO HAVECONTROL LEAD TO

ILLUSORY CONTROL?

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ter off if they overestimate theirpersonal control?

Only a few studies have ad-dressed the issue of the adaptive-ness of illusory control per se.Some of these studies have foundthat illusory control enhances

adaptive functioning. A study byAlloy and Clements (1992) exam-ined college students who varied inthe degree to which they exhibitedthe illusion of control. Comparedwith students who tended not tohave illusions of control, studentswho displayed greater illusions ofcontrol had less negative moodafter a failure on a lab task, wereless likely to become discouragedwhen they subsequently experi-enced negative life events, and

were less likely to get depressed amonth later, given the occurrenceof a high number of negative lifeevents. Thus, individuals who aresusceptible to an illusion of controlmay be at a decreased risk for de-pression and discouragement incomparison to those individualswho are not.

In contrast to this positive find-ing, there is also evidence thatoverestimating one s control is notadaptive. For example, Donovan,

Leavitt, and Walsh (1990) investi-gated the influence of illusory con-trol on child-care outcomes. Thedegree of illusory control was

measured with a simulated child-care task in which mothers tried toterminate the crying of an audio-taped baby. Mothers judged theircontrol over stopping the tape bypushing a button. In actuality, theirresponses were not connected to

the operation of the tape. A subse-quent simulation assessed themothers ability to learn effectiveresponses for getting an infant tostop crying. Mothers with a high il-lusion of control on the first taskwere more susceptible to helpless-ness on the second task, for exam-ple, by not responding even whencontrol was possible.

Which is the correct view: that il-lusory thinking is generally useful because it leads to positive emo-

tions and motivates people to trychallenging tasks, or that peopleare better off if they have an accu-rate assessment of themselves andtheir situation? Perhaps a thirdpossibility is correct: Sometimes il-lusory control is adaptive, and atother times it is not. For example,illusions of control may be reassur-ing in stressful situations, but leadpeople to take unnecessary riskswhen they occur in a gamblingcontext. The challenge for re-

searchers is to examine the conse-quences of illusory control in a va-riety of situations to answer thisimportant question.

Note

1. Address correspondence toSuzanne Thompson, Department ofPsychology, Pomona College, Clare-mont, CA 91711.

References

Alloy, L.B., & Abramson, L.Y. (1979). Judgment ofcontingency in depressed and nondepresseds tu den ts: S adde r bu t wis er? Journal ofExperimental Psychology: General, 108,

441 485.Alloy, L.B., Abramson, L.Y., & Viscusi, D. (1981).

Induced mood and the illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41,1129 1140.

Alloy, L.B., & Clements, C.M. (1992). Illusion ofcontrol: Invulnerability to negative affect anddepressive symptoms after laboratory and nat-ural stressors. Journal of Abnormal Psychology,101, 234 245.

Biner, P.M., Angle, S.T., Park, J.H., Mellinger, A.E.,& Barber, B.C. (1995). Need and the illusion ofcontrol. Personality and Social PsychologyBulletin, 21, 899 907.

Donovan, W.L., Leavitt, L.A., & Walsh, R.O. (1990).Maternal self-efficacy: Illusory control and itseffect on susceptibility to learned helplessness.Child Development, 61, 1638 1647.

Langer, E.J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal

of Personality and Social Psychology, 32,311 328.

Thompson, S.C., Armstrong, W., & Thomas, C.(1998). Illusions of control, underestimations,and accuracy: A control heuristic explanation.Psychological Bulletin, 123, 143 161.

Recommended Reading

Alloy, L.B., & Abramson, L.Y. (1979).(See References)

Langer, E.J. (1975). (See References)Thompson, S.C., Armstrong, W., &

Thomas, C. (1998). (See Refer-ences)

Published by Blackwell Publishers, Inc.