Success-slope effects on the illusion of control and on remembered success-frequency
Journal Title: Judgment and Decision Making - Year 2013, Vol 8, Issue 4
Abstract
The illusion of control refers to the inference of action-outcome contingency in situations where outcomes are in fact random. The strength of this illusion has been found to be affected by whether the frequency of successes increases or decreases over repeated trials, in what can be termed a “success-slope” effect. Previous studies have generated inconsistent findings regarding the nature of this effect. In this paper we present an experiment (N = 334) that overcomes several methodological limitations within this literature, employing a wider range of dependent measures (measures of two different types of illusory control, primary (by self) and secondary (by luck), as well as measures of remembered success-frequency). Results indicate that different dependent measures lead to different effects. On measures of (primary, but not secondary) control over the task, scores were highest when the rate of success increased over time. Meanwhile, estimates of success-frequency in the task did not vary across conditions and showed trends consistent with the broader literature on human memory.
Authors and Affiliations
Anastasia Ejova, Daniel J. Navarro and Paul H. Delfabbro
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP678086
- DOI -
- Views 132
- Downloads 0
Overconfidence over the lifespan
This research investigated how different forms of overconfidence correlate with age. Contrary to stereotypes that young people are more overconfident, the results provide little evidence that overestimation of one’s perf...
Methodological pitfalls of the Unconscious Thought paradigm
According to Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT: Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006), complex decisions are best made after a period of distraction assumed to elicit “unconscious thought”. Over three studies, respectively offeri...
Decision making in civil disputes: The effects of legal role, frame, and perceived chance of winning
The present study investigates the effect of framing and legal role on the propensity to accept a settlement offer by litigants in a simulated legal dispute. Participants were given four different scenarios that factoria...
Contingency inferences driven by base rates: Valid by sampling
Fiedler et al. (2009), reviewed evidence for the utilization of a contingency inference strategy termed pseudocontingencies (PCs). In PCs, the more frequent levels (and, by implication, the less frequent levels) are assu...
Numerate decision makers don’t use more effortful strategies unless it pays: A process tracing investigation of skilled and adaptive strategy selection in risky decision making
The present study investigated skilled and adaptive strategy selection in risky decision making. We proposed that people with high objective numeracy, a strong predictor of general decision making skill, would have a bro...