The development of the illusion of control and sense of agency in 7- to-12-year old children and adults

Elk, Michiel van; Rutjens, Bastiaan T.; Pligt, J. van der

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.08.004

Cited by 36 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(129 reference statements)

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“…This likely raised the level of the emotions until the moment of the discovery of the bad outcome: the higher the emotions before knowing it, the higher the difference between "before" and "after" the decision. However, we did not find an age effect, as found by [12], and this could be probably attributed to the different research paradigms used in the two studies.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 81%

“…This illusion is so pervasive that it lays at the heart of superstitious thinking also in the adult world. As regards the development of the sense of agency, researches have shown that young children present a reduced awareness about the possibilities to determine outcomes through actions, and that this altered sense of agency drives them easily towards the illusion of control [11,12]. The valence of the outcome plays a role as well, as young children tend to consider an outcome as intended when it satisfies their desire [13], and it has been also shown that the valence of the outcome drives children's judgements and decisions in bargaining games -see for example [14 -16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The More I Can Choose, The More I Am Disappointed: The “Illusion of Control” in Children’s Decision-Making

Castelli¹,

Massaro²,

Sanfey³

et al. 2017

TOPSYJ

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Background:Decision making is a complex psychological process driven by emotions. Among the most unpleasant ones are the situations when the obtained outcome is not the one expected. This emotional experience is influenced by sense of agency, i.e. the feeling that we voluntarily control our actions and, through them, events in the world. Negative counterfactual emotions as disappointment have been marginally analyzed in children's decision-making, and the study of children's sense of agency could help to understand them. Objective:To evaluate during childhood the valence of disappointment in decision making in relation to the possibility of choosing or not. Method:107 children (age range 7-10 years) rated their emotions before and after discovering the outcome, in two experimental conditions: choice condition, where the child could decide which of the two remaining tickets to choose in order to win some candies, and no choice condition, where the child could not decide as only one ticket was left. Results:The self-attribution of a positive emotional state was significantly higher in the choice condition than in the no choice condition, so the possibility to pick up the ticket made children happier in general, by promoting an "illusion of control", which is absent in the no choice condition. Then, after discovering the bad outcome, the emotions collapse, settling at substantially similar values. Conclusion:Children have experienced a sense of agency for their choice, thus leading to an illusion of control for the decision process and to the so-called "wishful thinking".

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 81%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The More I Can Choose, The More I Am Disappointed: The “Illusion of Control” in Children’s Decision-Making

Castelli¹,

Massaro²,

Sanfey³

et al. 2017

TOPSYJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We also manipulated control by asking participants to work on an unsolvable anagram task (Study 5) and by presenting participants with short vignettes describing situations associated with low feelings of control (Study 6). We investigated the effects of our control threat manipulations on magical thinking (Study 1-3), which was operationalized as the perception of an illusory correlation between two objectively unrelated events (van Elk, Rutjens, et al, 2015). We also investigated the effects on general belief in conspiracy theories and in paranormal beliefs as a source of compensatory control (Study 4 and 5).…”

Section: Overview Of Experiments and Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because such experiences can be psychologically stressful, it has been suggested that people have a motivated tendency to counter such feelings through different psychological mechanisms (Landau, Kay, & Whitson, 2015). For instance, people may tend to overestimate the extent to which they can control their lives or their environment (Presson & Benassi, 1996;Whalen, 1998), as becomes evident in research on positive illusions and magical thinking (Taylor & Brown, 1988;van Elk, Rutjens, & van der Pligt, 2015). Furthermore, people who lack control may try to restore their implicit sense of control through attributional biases (Pittman & Pittman, 1979).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Experimental Manipulations of Personal Control do Not Increase Illusory Pattern Perception

Elk

Lodder

2018

Collabra: Psychology

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We report seven experiments to investigate the effects of control threat manipulations on different measures of illusory pattern perception: magical thinking (Study 1-3), conspiracy beliefs (Study 4), paranormal beliefs (Study 5) and agent detection (Study 6 and 7). Overall we did not find evidence for an effect of control threat on any of our relevant dependent measures. By using Bayesian analyses we obtained positive evidence for the null-hypothesis that an experimentally induced loss of control does not affect illusory pattern perception. Finally, by re-conducting a recent meta-analysis we found strong evidence for publication bias and a relatively small effect size for control-threat manipulations. Together, these results cast doubt on the potential efficacy of experimental autobiographical recall manipulations to manipulate feelings of control.

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The Experience of Coincidence: An Integrated Psychological and Neurocognitive Perspective

Elk

Friston

Bekkering

2016

The Frontiers Collection

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In this chapter, we focus on psychological and brain perspectives on the experience of coincidence. We first introduce the topic of the experience of coincidence in general. In the second section, we outline several psychological mechanisms that underlie the experience of coincidence in humans, such as cognitive biases, the role of context and the role of individual differences. In the third and final section we formulate the phenomenon of coincidence in the light of the unifying brain account of predictive coding, while arguing that the notion of coincidence provides a wonderful example of a construct that connects the Bayesian brain to folk psychology and philosophy. PreludeThis book concentrates on the topic of coincidence. In this chapter, we focus on psychological and brain perspectives on the phenomenon of coincidence. Humans frequently experiences coincidences in life in the sense of the Oxford dictionary: A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection. To shed light on this issue, we will first introduce the topic of coincidence in general. In the second section, we outline several psychological attri-

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The development of the illusion of control and sense of agency in 7- to-12-year old children and adults

Cited by 36 publications

References 69 publications

The More I Can Choose, The More I Am Disappointed: The “Illusion of Control” in Children’s Decision-Making

The More I Can Choose, The More I Am Disappointed: The “Illusion of Control” in Children’s Decision-Making

Experimental Manipulations of Personal Control do Not Increase Illusory Pattern Perception

The Experience of Coincidence: An Integrated Psychological and Neurocognitive Perspective

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