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control
You assume you influence things that are purely random.
People are more confident in their ability to win a game of chance if they feel a sense of personal involvement.
Whether it is choosing your own lottery numbers or shaking dice, you feel a false sense of agency over outcomes that remain statistically independent. We find the idea of randomness harder to accept than the idea of our own skill.
Your sense of control is often a buffer against the random.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Langer (1975)
- What the check found
- This is a well-established psychological phenomenon known as the 'illusion of control,' first identified in Ellen Langer's 1975 paper of the same name.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.