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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. Psychological theorists have consistently emphasized the importance of perceptions of control over life events. One of the earliest instances of this is when 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. Later on, Lefcourt argued that the sense of control, the illusion that one can exercise personal choice, has a definite and a positive role in sustaining life. Nearer to the present, Taylor and Brown〔 argued that positive illusions, including the illusion of control, foster mental health. The illusion is more common in familiar situations, and in situations where the person knows the desired outcome. Feedback that emphasizes success rather than failure can increase the effect, while feedback that emphasizes failure can decrease or reverse the effect.〔 The illusion is weaker for depressed individuals and is stronger when individuals have an emotional need to control the outcome.〔 The illusion is strengthened by stressful and competitive situations, including financial trading.〔 Though people are likely to overestimate their control when the situations are heavily chance-determined, they also tend to underestimate their control when they actually have it, which runs contrary to some theories of the illusion and its adaptiveness. People also showed a higher illusion of control when they were allowed to become familiar with a task through practice trials, make their choice before the event happens like with throwing dice, and when they can make their choice rather than have it made for them with the same odds. People even are more likely to show control when they have more answers right at the beginning than at the end even when the people had the same number of correct answers.〔 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. ==By proxy== At times, people attempt to gain control by transferring responsibility to more capable or “luckier” others to act for them. By forfeiting direct control, it is perceived to be a valid way of maximizing outcomes. This illusion of control by proxy is a significant theoretical extension of the traditional illusion of control model. People will of course give up control if another person is thought to have more knowledge or skill in areas such as medicine where actual skill and knowledge are involved. In cases like these it is entirely rational to give up responsibility to people such as doctors. However, when it comes to events of pure chance, allowing another to make decisions (or gamble) on one’s behalf, because they are seen as luckier is not rational and would go against people’s well-documented desire for control in uncontrollable situations. However, it does seem plausible since people generally believe that they can possess luck and employ it to advantage in games of chance, and it is not a far leap that others may also be seen as lucky and able to control uncontrollable events. In one instance, a lottery pool at a company decides on who picks the numbers and buys the tickets based on the wins and losses of each member. The member with the best record becomes the representative until they accumulate a certain number of losses and then a new representative is picked based on wins and losses. Even though no member is truly better than the other and it is all by chance, they still would rather have someone with seemingly more luck to have control over them. In another real world example, in the 2002 Olympics men's and women's hockey finals, Team Canada beat Team USA but it was later believed that the win was the result of the luck of a Canadian coin that was secretly placed under the ice before the game. The members of Team Canada were the only people who knew the coin had been placed there. The coin was later put in the Hockey Hall of Fame where there was an opening so people could touch it. People believed they could transfer luck from the coin to themselves by touching it, and thereby change their own luck. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Illusion of control」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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