What to Know About the Illusion of Control

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsCharacteristicsCausesOther InfluencesImpactCoping

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Characteristics

Causes

Other Influences

Impact

Coping

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The illusion of control is a tendency to overestimate how much control you have over the outcome of uncontrollable events. This type of thinking is thought to play a role in superstitions,gamblingbehavior, and paranormal beliefs.

Research has found that when the outcome that people desire occurs, they tend to believe that they were the ones who were controlling it. This occurs even when people have no actual influence over what happens.

Wearing a lucky baseball cap to “help” your favorite team win is one example of this phenomenon.

The illusion of control can affect people in a wide variety of contexts and situations. You are probably falling prey to this illusion anytime you think your actions influence an event outside your individual control. Some characteristics of this illusion include:

What Does ‘Cognitive’ Mean in Psychology?

Causes of the Illusion of Control

Researchers have proposed a few different theories about why people overestimate their control over different situations and outcomes.

This illusion may occur because people mistake random chance for skill. However, people may also believe events are in their control of past events previously aligned with their desired outcomes.

This doesn’t mean that you are bound to misjudge your own level of control in every situation. Research has shown, however, that several factors can increase the likelihood of this illusion:

Interestingly, researchers have found that people tend to underestimate their own power in situations where they actually do have high levels of control.

This suggests that people don’t just overestimate their level of control—people simply tend to make imperfect estimates of their level of control in general.

Impact of the Illusion of Control

Believing you have control over uncontrollable events can have a number of significant implications. It often leads people to invest time and energy into ineffective, unhelpful, or even counterproductive actions.

You might waste time or money engaging in behaviors that don’t influence the outcome at all. Those resources may have been better spent on things that do have the power to benefit your life.

While this illusion is usually viewed in a negative light, it can have positive effects. Some of the potential upsides of the illusion of control:

Research has found that people who have a greater sense of control engage in healthier behaviors, experience less distress, and have greater overall psychological well-being.

But while the illusion of control can motivate people to take action and feel better about themselves, it also has downsides. Since people feel they have power over situations where they largely have none, they may blame themselves and experience regret and recrimination when things don’t go their way.

Because it creates a false sense of control, it may lead people to take unnecessary risks. For example, a gambler might risk large amounts of money because they mistakenly think that their own actions have any effect on a game that relies on random chance. This can have devastating financial consequences that have long-term effects on an individual’s life.

This illusion can also affect the type of risks financial traders make when they are making investments in the stock market. One study found that the more control traders felt they had over the market, the worse their actual performance was.

Another issue is that the successes tend to reinforce belief in individual control, but failures tend to be discredited or ignored. Because people only look for information thatconfirms their existing beliefs, it makes it more difficult to learn from past mistakes.

Instead of improving performance based on accurate feedback about what people actually have control over, the illusion of control leads people to focus their attention on things that don’t impact the outcome.

Coping With the Illusion of Control

Everyone is susceptible to this illusion, but there are also things that you can do to lessen its effects and make more deliberate, accurate judgments and decisions. A few strategies that can help include:

Consider learning more about the steps in thescientific methodand then try applying these methods to different situations in your life. Looking for information that disputes your existing beliefs, for example, can help reduce your overreliance on your own limited perspective.

7 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

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Hong JH, Lachman ME, Charles ST, Chen Y, Wilson CL, Nakamura JS, VanderWeele TJ, Kim ES.The positive influence of sense of control on physical, behavioral, and psychosocial health in older adults: An outcome-wide approach.Prev Med. 2021;149:106612. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106612

Fenton-O’Creevy M, Nicholson N, Soane E, Willman P.Trading on illusions: Unrealistic perceptions of control and trading performance.Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 2003;76(1):53-68. doi:10.1348/096317903321208880

Matute H, Blanco F, Yarritu I, Díaz-Lago M, Vadillo MA, Barberia I.Illusions of causality: how they bias our everyday thinking and how they could be reduced.Front Psychol. 2015;6:888. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00888

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