Illusion of control

The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events; for example, it occurs when someone feels a sense of control over outcomes that they demonstrably do not influence. The effect was named by psychologist Ellen Langer and has been replicated in many different contexts. It is thought to influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Along with illusory superiority and optimism bias, the illusion of control is one of the positive illusions.

The illusion might arise because people lack direct introspective insight into whether they are in control of events. This has been called the introspection illusion. Instead they may judge their degree of control by a process that is often unreliable. As a result, they see themselves as responsible for events when there is little or no causal link. In one study, college students were in a virtual reality setting to treat a fear of heights using an elevator. Those who were told that they had control, yet had none, felt as though they had as much control as those who actually did have control over the elevator. Those who were led to believe they did not have control said they felt as though they had little control.

Psychological theorists have consistently emphasized the importance of perceptions of control over life events. One of the earliest instances of this is when Alfred Adler argued that people strive for proficiency in their lives. Heider later proposed that humans have a strong motive to control their environment and Wyatt Mann hypothesized a basic competence motive that people satisfy by exerting control. Wiener, an attribution theorist, modified his original theory of achievement motivation to include a controllability dimension. Kelley then argued that people's failure to detect noncontingencies may result in their attributing uncontrollable outcomes to personal causes. Nearer to the present, Taylor and Brown argued that positive illusions, including the illusion of control, foster mental health.