Desire for control and the illusion of control: The effects of familiarity and sequence of outcomes

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine the relationship between individual differences in the general desire for control and the illusion of control. In Experiment 1, high desire for control college students bet significantly more than lows in a gambling game when they were playing with familiar cards, but not when playing with unfamiliar cards. In Experiment 2, high desire for control subjects demonstrated the illusion of control in a coin-toss game when they experienced success in anticipating the outcome of the coin toss at the begnning of the sequence. These subjects believed they had performed better on the task and anticipated they would do better on upcoming tasks than low desire for control subjects or subjects who experienced failure at the beginning of the sequence.