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The Illusion of Control, Superstitious Belief, and Optimism

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The Illusion of Control, Superstitious Belief, and Optimism The Illusion of Control, Superstitious Belief, and Optimism JEFFREY RUDSKI Muhlenberg College Two hundred and seventy five participants each filled out three questionnaires exam- ining the illusion of control, optimism/pessimism, and paranormal belief. The illu- sion of control was related to overall paranormal belief, an effect primarily due to the superstition and precognition sub-scales on the PBS-R. Optimism was positively and pessimism negatively related to religiosity on the PBS-R, and pessimism was also positively related to the superstition sub-scale. No relationships between optimism or pessimism and the illusion of control were observed. Results are discussed in terms of superstition and the illusion of control both arising from circumstances that are inherently random or uncontrollable, and how multiple definitions of optimism or superstition could have effected the results. Two seemingly opposite sets of results have been reliably observed when people are faced with uncontrollable outcomes. On the one hand, there are reports of learned help- lessness, characterized by decreased motivation and cognitive capacity (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Hiroto & Seligman, 1975). Conversely, Matute (1994, 1995) demonstrated that participants faced with an uncontrollable task tended to re- spond according to superstitious behavior and generate an illusion of control (i.e., the erroneous belief that one can influence outcomes in situations under which one has no control, see Langer, 1975). Similar superstitious behavior in the face of uncontrollable reinforcement has frequently been reported in the literature (e.g., Skinner, 1948; Ono, 1987; Wright, 1962; Rudski, Lischner, & Albert, 1999). These two sets of results appear contradictory. Matute (1994) suspected that the dis- crepant results (i.e., learned helplessness versus an illusion of control) arise from proce- dural differences. For instance, in Hiroto and Seligman's study, participants were given failure feedback in the form of turning on a light each time a response failed to produce the desired outcome. Conversely, failure feedback was not part of the procedure in studies where superstitious responding was observed. Matute suggested that the cogni- tive deficits observed in Hiroto and Seligman's study could be due to alternative expla- nations such as experimentally induced failure (e.g., Buchwald, 1978), egotism (Frankel & Snyder, 1978), or even extinction due to never having responses followed by desired outcomes. Finally, she suggested that learned helplessness and superstition (and the illusion of control) might represent opposite ends of the same continuum, with various factors and conditions determining which if either would be manifested following expo- sure to uncontrollable outcomes. Even under procedures conducive to its development, learned helplessness is usually observed in only two-thirds of human participants (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, Current Psychology:Developmental, Learning, Personality,Social. Winter 2004, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 306- 315. Rudski 307 1978; Seligman, 1990; Thornton & Jacobs, 1978; and Hiroto, 1974). Moreover, for some participants helplessness is only transitory, whereas it can be quite persistent in others. To account for these individual differences, several personality factors have been hypothesized to play a role in mediating helplessness. First, the degree of a participants' belief in the paranormal may modify whether or not learned helplessness develops. Dudley (1999) had participants attempt to solve ana- grams following exposure to either solvable or unsolvable problems. Results showed that following unsolvable problems, the number of anagrams solved was positively related to level of paranormal beliefs. Moreover, paranormal beliefs increased follow- ing exposure to unsolvable, but not solvable problems. Dudley concluded that the adop- tion of paranormal beliefs can work to prevent the performance impairment often observed after instances of uncontrollability and failure. A second factor that might influence the development of helplessness is an individual's explanatory or attributional style (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). Attributional style can be thought of as the beliefs that people carry to explain why certain environmental events occur following their behaviors. Negative or pessimistic styles are linked to increased susceptibility to learned helplessness and depression, whereas positive or optimistic styles may provide "immunity" to helplessness or depression (Seligman, 1990). Several sets of studies suggest relationships between attributional style, optimism, and perceived controllability. Alloy and Abramson (1979) reported that depressed people (assumed to have a negative or pessimistic attributional style) were much less likely to show an illusion of control in a task where there was no contingency between their behavior and desired outcomes than were non-depressed participants. When combined with reports linking helplessness to depression (e.g., Seligman, 1990), these findings support the notion that learned helplessness and the illusion of control are in some way opposites. In studies examining relationships between optimism and controllability, optimistic bias is typically examined by having people make judgments regarding the comparative likelihood of future events. For example, participants might be asked about their chances of getting into an automobile accident relative to the average person. Sample means typically reveal above average estimates of positive outcomes (e.g., owning a large house), and below average estimates of negative outcomes (e.g., having a heart attack), particularly in instances where there is a high degree of perceived controllability (for reviews see Harris, 1996; McKenna, 1993). Similar patterns of results have been inter- preted as suggesting that people tend to be optimistically biased towards events believed to be controllable (e.g., Harris, 1996; Hoorens, 1994). In terms of dispositional tenden- cies, it might follow that there is a relationship between an illusion of control and optimism. The current study examined the interrelationships between perceived controllability, optimism, pessimism, and superstition. It is hypothesized that the illusion of control, superstition, and optimism will be positively related. 308 Current Psychology / Winter 2004 METHODS Participants Two hundred and seventy five undergraduate students (169 female and 106 male, age range 18-25 years old) at an American liberal arts college participated in the study. Participants were treated in accordance with the "Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct" (American Psychological Association, 1992) and the institution's Internal Review policy. Six participants did not fill out the Illusion of Control survey (see below). Surveys were disseminated at the end of various classes. Approximately half of the participants received course participation credits, while the other half filled out the surveys on a voluntary basis (dependent upon the professor). A written debrief- ing statement was disseminated to participants. Materials and Procedure Participants completed a three-part survey in a group setting. The first part allowed for the inference of the illusion of control. Participants were told to imagine that they had three lottery tickets: Ticket "A" was selected with their "lucky numbers." Ticket "B" was found blowing down the street. The numbers on Ticket "C" were selected by a computer. They were then asked (1) which ticket they would be most likely to give away, (2) which ticket they would be most likely to keep, and (3) whether or not they would exchange Ticket "A" ("lucky numbers") for two Ticket "C's" (computer gener- ated). For the first two questions, participants were given the option of responding "no preference." This procedure is based on one of Langer's (1975) studies in her seminal paper on the illusion of control. In her study, participants either chose their own lottery ticket or were handed one by the experimenter. Langer's dependent measure was whether or not a participant would be willing to exchange their ticket for another. She found that participants who selected their own tickets attached higher value to them than did par- ticipants who were handed their tickets by the experimenter despite the odds of winning being identical in each condition, suggesting an illusion of control. Optimism was assessed with the O/P instrument (Dember & Brooks, 1989; Dember, Martin, Hummer, Howe, & Melton, 1989). This measure was selected because it has been found to be both reliable and valid, and it provides separate scores for dispositional optimism and pessimism, which have been shown to be partially independent (Hummer, Dember, Melton, & Schefft, 1992). Thus, in addition to examining relationships be- tween optimism, the illusion of control and superstition, examination of pessimism in relation to these constructs was possible. Superstitious belief was assessed with Tobacyk's Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (1988). Participants rate their level of agreement with 26 statements (anchors 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) relating to various paranormal beliefs. The Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS-R) has seven sub-scales that include religiosity, psi-belief (e.g., telekinesis), witchcraft, superstition (e.g., bad luck stemming from black cats or broken mirrors), spiritualism (e.g., reincarnation), extraordinary life (e.g., the Loch Rudski 309 Ness Monster), and
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