Illusion of Control

Question 1

Dice-throwing behaviour study

Answer 1

• In study of taxi drivers playing craps, it was discovered that they believe:
• • A hard throw produces a large number, and a soft or easy throw a low number
• • Different levels of concentration and effort lead to different numbers

Question 2

Illusion of Control

Answer 2

• One definition: “expectancy of a personal success probability inappropriately higher than the objective probability”
• Skill vs. Chance confusion: in a situation of chance/unpredictability, people behave as they would in a situation requiring skill
• Hypothesis: features of “skill situations introduced into chance situations cause individuals to feel inappropriately confident”
• An illusion of control can only happen if you truly have no way of controlling the outcome

Question 3

Irrelevant Choice Study 1

Answer 3

• Lottery based on football cards as tickets (cost = $1); participants either choose their card or get given a card (yoked design -> if participants often choose Suarez, participants in the second condition would often be given Suarez)
• Next day, asked how much you’d sell that card back for: if you chose it, ~$9, if you didn’t, ~$2
• She also offers to swap ticket for one in a different lottery with higher odds of winning -> much more likely to say no if they chose ticket

Question 4

Irrelevant choice study 2

Answer 4

• Participants predict the outcome of a dice roll to win $5, choose whether you throw or the experimenter does
• 76% choose to throw it themselves -> people like having choice event if it doesn’t change odds of winning

Question 5

Role of Instrumental Action (“Involvement”) in Gambling

Answer 5

• Craps: players place higher bets and bet more riskily on their own throws (compared to others’ throws)
• Roulette: higher bets when player vs. croupier throws ball

Question 6

Superstitions studies

Answer 6

• Regular slot machine gamblers tested twice: once with ritual/superstition permitted, once with ritual/superstition permitted
• • On lucky charm day, they play for twice as long and spend twice as much
• Students performed better at Memory/card-matching game in presence of lucky charm

Question 7

Forms of illusory control

Answer 7

• Ex. Interpreting wins as evidence of skill, re-interpreting losses, using lucky charms, praying or superstitious rituals
• Primary (Active) vs. Secondary (Passive) Illusory Control:
• • Primary: belief that direct intervention by the individual can modify the outcome (skills, lucky charms, rituals)
• • Secondary: belief that they can predict or sense the outcome, but not actually change it

Question 8

Mechanisms at work in illusory control

Answer 8

• Skill / chance confusion: you estimate the probability as higher because you have inferred some skill in the game
• Preference for personal agency (actions or choices) – we prefer to do it ourselves, but may not change the probability
• Regret avoidance: we anticipate the feeling if we sold our ticket (or didn’t buy a ticket to begin with) and those numbers won (e.g. people do not like ‘tempting fate’)

Question 9

contingency judgment task: is there an increased illusion of control in gambling disorder?

Answer 9

• Contingency Judgment Task: participants have to pretend to be doctors and decide whether to give a drug to a patient
• • After choice, told whether patient is healed (drug actually doesn’t do anything)
• • 50 trials of this, then asked participant how effective they think the drug is -> Participants often overestimate the effectiveness of the drug, and participants with gambling disorder overestimate it even more

Question 10

illusion of control in skillful situations

Answer 10

• Gamblers may overestimate their level of skill
• • Both problem and non-problem gamblers who prefer skill games have higher scores on Gambling Beliefs Questionnaire
• • Non-problem gamblers are fairly good at estimating control in games of chance (unlike problem gamblers), but everyone is bad at estimating control in skill games