The Illusion of the Illusion of Control

This dissertation is an exploration of people’s estimates of control, with a particular focus on the illusion of control. Ellen Langer’s 1975 article introduced the illusion of control as “an expectancy of a personal success probability inappropriately higher than the objective probability would warrant.” Since her work, subsequent research has focused on factors, such as mood, intention, and connection to the outcomes that modify estimates of control, but little work has been done to investigate the process by which people estimate control. The studies presented here—six experimental and one simulation—address this gap. My central question is: Are people’s estimates of control accurate?The consideration of this question raises further questions that have not been deeply explored in the illusion of control literature. For example, how can we judge the accuracy of people’s estimates of control? Are laypersons’ definitions of control congruent with a normative standard for accuracy? What is the process by which people estimate control and can we model this? Can we extend our examination of control into domains where outcomes are not dichotomous? I address the constancy of the illusion of control by examining how people estimate control in situations where their objective control is high. Two studies using a novel paradigm show that people under-estimate control when it is objectively high and over-estimate it when control is objectively low. A third study using a common illusion of control experimental design, the event-onset paradigm, replicates this finding. Together, these three studies question whether people have an innate bias towards believing they have more control than they really do. But just how do people estimate control? To address this question, I develop a normativemodel for estimating control using a widely accepted