Wiener, an attribution theorist, modified his original theory of achievement motivation to include a controllability dimension.
Kelley then argued that people's failure to detect noncontingencies may result in their attributing uncontrollable outcomes to personal causes.
[11][12] At times, people attempt to gain control by transferring responsibility to more capable or “luckier” others to act for them.
However, when it comes to events of pure chance, allowing another to make decisions (or gamble) on one's behalf, because they are seen as luckier is not rational and would go against people's well-documented desire for control in uncontrollable situations.
However, it does seem plausible since people generally believe that they can possess luck and employ it to advantage in games of chance, and it is not a far leap that others may also be seen as lucky and able to control uncontrollable events.
[13] In one instance, a lottery pool at a company decides who picks the numbers and buys the tickets based on the wins and losses of each member.
Prior to the match, a Canadian coin was secretly placed under the ice before the game, an action which the players and officials believed would bring them luck.
[18] Ellen Langer's research demonstrated that people were more likely to behave as if they could exercise control in a chance situation where "skill cues" were present.
Subjects with early "hits" overestimated their total successes and had higher expectations of how they would perform on future guessing games.
[6][20] This result resembles the irrational primacy effect in which people give greater weight to information that occurs earlier in a series.
[5] Yet another way to investigate perceptions of control is to ask people about hypothetical situations, for example their likelihood of being involved in a motor vehicle accident.
[16][23][24] Ellen Langer, who first demonstrated the illusion of control, explained her findings in terms of a confusion between skill and chance situations.
As well as an intention to win, there is an action, such as throwing a die or pulling a lever on a slot machine, which is immediately followed by an outcome.
[4] This position is supported by Albert Bandura's claim in 1989 that "optimistic self-appraisals of capability, that are not unduly disparate from what is possible, can be advantageous, whereas veridical judgements can be self-limiting".
In 1997 Bandura also suggested that: "In activities where the margins of error are narrow and missteps can produce costly or injurious consequences, personal well-being is best served by highly accurate efficacy appraisal.
In a scenario-based study, Whyte et al. showed in 1997 that participants in whom they had induced high self-efficacy were significantly more likely to escalate commitment to a failing course of action.
[32] In 1998 Knee and Zuckerman challenged the definition of mental health used by Taylor and Brown and argue that lack of illusions is associated with a non-defensive personality oriented towards growth and learning and with low ego involvement in outcomes.
In the late 1970s, Abramson and Alloy demonstrated that depressed individuals held a more accurate view than their non-depressed counterparts in a test which measured illusion of control.
However, when replicating the findings Msetfi et al. (2005, 2007) found that the overestimation of control in nondepressed people only showed up when the interval was long enough, implying that this is because they take more aspects of a situation into account than their depressed counterparts.
[35][36] Also, Dykman et al. (1989) showed that depressed people believe they have no control in situations where they actually do, so their perception is not more accurate overall.
[39] This link for older people having improved health because of a sense of control was discussed in a study conducted in a nursing home.
As the residents at the nursing home were encouraged to make more choices for themselves, there was more sense of control over their daily lives.
[40] Fenton-O'Creevy et al.[9] argue, as do Gollwittzer and Kinney in 1998,[41] that while illusory beliefs about control may promote goal striving, they are not conducive to sound decision-making.
Psychologist Daniel Wegner argues that an illusion of control over external events underlies belief in psychokinesis, a supposed paranormal ability to move objects directly using the mind.