Week 2 Flashcards
what did Langer (1975) publish a paper on?
the illusion on control - where she carried out experiments and explored the relationship between skill and luck. where one think they’re acting skilfully but its actually luck/chance
- she then looked at mindlessness and introduced mindfulness as an antidote to the illusion of control
What is the idea of perceived control?
A belief… “that one is able to determine one’s internal state and is also able to influence the environment and make positive changes or make some differences in dealing with a negative situation” (Fatemi & Langer 2016, p.132)
how is illusion of control connected to perceived control?
With perceived control its a subjective feeling that we are able to influence out environment when we are actually not. it is subjective and related to past successes
what did Langer (1975) find with those trying to obtain a desired outcome?
people trying to obtain a desired outcome that occurred independently of their behaviour tended to believe that they were controlling it.
- Langer argued that there is an overlap between skill and luck or chance in relation to success.
- E.g., factors from skill situations – competition, choice, familiarity, involvement – when introduced into chance situations can cause individuals to feel inappropriately confident
what is the difference between skill and luck?
- In skill there is a clear causal link for success between behaviours/decisions and outcomes – a link that is ‘controllable’.
- With luck or chance, there is no such link and outcomes are ‘uncontrollable’.
- The problem is that this distinction is not always recognizable by decision makers.
what is the negative side of IOC?
we tend to over-estimate our ability to control events; on the positive side, having feelings that we are ‘in control’ contributes to our well being and self esteem, (Langer’s link to ‘mindfulness’).
what did Langer discover with well-being and control in relation to higher levels of perceived control?
Higher levels of perceived control usually display less anxiety, stress, boredom and depression.
- Loss of control is anxiety arousing.
- A chronic feeling of not having control is characterized by passivity and giving up in the face of failure
what happens when the illusion of control interferes with the types of decisions we are making?
when the subjective feeling of control creates a bias, we become skewed orientated or biased towards the feeling of doing everything
- we are naturally biased towards positivity, we look for causes and effects to find correlation with causalit.
= therefore people approach a chance situation with a skill orientation
what is illusion?
- a mis-perception of a real external stimulus.
- eg Managers overestimating their ability to achieve outcomes through
overconfidence
what is delusion?
a fixed false belief when evidence shows it not to be true. Such as believing the Earth is flat
when does delusion occur?
Where we take beliefs to be ‘knowledge’, the result can be delusion.
* Some delusions are wish-fulfilling beliefs – we WANT to believe something is true
what is Kahneman and Tversky (1979) planning fallacy?
a belief that tasks in the future will be completed more quickly and
successfully, than in the past
what is the effect of IOC on individual decision making?
- illusion of control
- underestimation of risks and overconfidence
- bias and weak reasoning
what is underestimation of risks and overconfidence?
- More likely in people who have experienced continuous success.
- Persons in positions of power overestimate their influence
in forecasting outcomes in situations of uncertainty. - Illusions of personal control and influence leads people to lose touch with reality.
- Thus, decisions are based on overconfidence.
what is bias and weak reasoning?>
- Over-estimate our ability to control outcomes that are due to chance.
- Over-estimate our ability to accomplish tasks – quantity and quality. (e.g., Planning Fallacy)
- Tendency to under-estimate other people – their abilities and the value of their contributions
what is self-serving attribution bias?
- where we take credit when its positive and blame external factors when negative
- ‘locus of control’ can be attributed internally to ability and effort or externally to task difficulty or luck (Weiner et al, 1972)
what is good luck?
doing better than objective possibilities might suggest
what is bad luck?
doing worst than objective possibilities might suggest
what is over-confidence?
believing in a better outcome than objective conditions might suggest
what is over-optimism?
believing that bad things will not happen to me. most decision failures happen through this as we have the belief that we are less likely to experience a negative event
what is illusion of competence?
how much of the success is down to skill and how much of it is down to luck
- when working in a team, we see others as a hindrance not help
- success, if repeated tends to confirm our belief in our own competence
- this illusion tells us we cant fail which leads us to forget all the good disciplines of decision-making that made us successful in the first place.
= so we may never learn from our mistakes
what is the effect of risk behaviour and poor decisions?
- Belief they can mitigate negative outcomes through perceived control
- Overestimated internal control &
underestimate (or ignore) external factors - Believe they can do it better
themselves – poor delegation and teamworking
4, Resistance to change and poor
adaptability - Superstitions
what is the impact of IOC on decision makers?
that decision-makers take bigger risks than the objective situation justifies usually without realising how exposed they have become
what are the implications of IOC for practice?
- Failure to conduct sufficient research
- Tendency to under-estimate difficulties
- Tendency to under-value contributions others make or would make if only the decision-maker would listen
- Embarking upon ventures with little or no prospect of success
- Decision over-reach
- Complacency produces increased risk of accidents/
