Individual Differences and Illusion of Control

Running head: LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR 1
Learning and Behavior
Name:
Institution:

LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR 2
Individual Differences and Illusion of Control
INTRODUCTION
When people behave in a manner likely to suggest that they have control over certain actions or
situations which are really determined by probability or chance, this is called illusion of control
(Langer, 1975). They, under this illusion, feel that they have absolute control over the outcome
of the events that they undertake. Sometimes, when cues related to skills, such as choice,
practice, or competition are introduced to situations that are determined by chance, people
behave as if the outcomes of their actions in the situation were determined by skill (Goffman,
1967). For instance, when it comes to the rolling of a dice, or picking the numbers of lottery
tickets, people prefer to roll the dice themselves rather than having someone else do it for them.
When someone else does this for them, they will blame the other person for any negative
outcomes associated with the rolling of the dice or the picking of the lottery ticket.
Many explanations have been fronted for why individuals feel that they are in control of events
that are otherwise by chance. Langer for example, says that choice, stimulus familiarity and
thinking time are critical components of skilled tasks and therefore they encourage people to
strategies in situations of chance. However, this cannot explain how all outcomes of chance
situations turn out.
Individual differences describe the sum of all the characteristics that make a person unique.
Nature has one principle of dissimilarity i.e. for example, in human beings, no two human beings
are similar, including twins. Differences are in physical aspects such as weight, height,
complexion of the skin, color of the hair etc., while psychological differences arise in
intelligence, interest, achievement, attitude, learning habits, scholastic aptitude, and skills.

LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR 3
Differences are also manifested in how individuals work on or control their emotions of anger,
fear, love, pain and pleasure. All these contribute to differences between individuals.
Given these individual differences, and combined with illusion control, make for an interesting
study of how human differences relate to control illusion. One way to examine the issue of
control illusion has been through the idea of inspiration: people’s judgments and perceptions of
control are influenced by personal needs geared towards the sustenance of self –esteem; with the
need for control being key here. The sense of having an illusion of control, irrespective or
individual differences, has been directly linked to positive well-being. On the other hand, the
reverse perception of not being in control has been related to negative consequences, some of
which may be fatal such as depression and suicide.
Don’t need to describe what sort of tasks was undertaken. Just say that” in this experiment”
please describe procedure in method section not in introduction section.
In this study, 2 tasks were undertaken: one dice involved throwing the dice 30 times with the
aim of getting as many sixes as possible, while the other involved controlling or influencing the
trend line of a stock exchange. The following hypotheses were tested for the dice throwing
activity:
Hypothesis 1: There will be more throws made by those who believe that they will score higher
than by those who believe the contrary.
Hypothesis 2: there will be higher Drake Belief Scores for those participants who anticipate to
get sixes in subsequent throws of the dice.

LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR 4
Hypothesis 3: there is a direct positive relationship between those who throw dices on their own
and the probability or anticipation to get more 6s in subsequent throws of the dice.
Hypothesis4: for each participant, there is a direct connection between the number of 6s obtained
during the trial and the number that can be made in future attempts.
Additionally, in the computer software task, some four more hypotheses were set to be tested and
these are:
Hypothesis 5: the participants who exercised the naturalistic condition considered the task more
controllable and they felt that they were in control more than those who received analytical
instructions and therefore seemed to be passive participants in the exercise.
Hypothesis 6: the participants in the naturalistic condition, being active participants in the
process, were more likely to press buttons than those receiving analytical instructions.
Hypothesis 7: The participants in the naturalistic condition, due to their active engagement in the
activity, are more likely than their counterparts in the analytical condition to report a strategy for
engaging in the activity.
Hypothesis 8: There is a strong connection between the Drake Scales and: the number of button
presses, the ratings of control and those who report having established a strategy.
The above hypotheses were all tested in this series of two experiments.