← all facts
control
Your brain creates patterns where there are none.
A 2008 study found that individuals who were prompted to feel a lack of control were more likely to perceive illusory patterns in random noise.
When you lose your sense of agency, your brain compensates by finding order in randomness to regain a sense of predictability. This manifests as believing in coincidences or seeing images in static.
Your mind would rather be wrong than feel powerless.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Whitson and Galinsky, 2008, Science
- What the check found
- The citation and the core finding accurately reflect the 2008 study published by Whitson and Galinsky in the journal Science.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.