#28 A Critique of Heads I Win, Tails It s Chance: The Illusion of Control as a Function of

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1 #28 A Critique of Heads I Win, Tails It s Chance: The Illusion of Control as a Function of the Sequence of Outcomes in a Purely Chance Task By Langer, E. J. & Roth, J. (1975) Sheren Yeung Newcastle University

2 Introduction This assignment provides a critique of the paper Heads I Win, Tails It s Chance: The Illusion of Control as a Function of the Sequence of Outcomes in a Purely Chance Task (1). I will first provide an overall summary of Langer & Roth (1975) s experiment, followed by implications and critical comments. In the last part of the essay, I will briefly outline a further study which test on the same hypothesis. Summary of the paper The main research question of the paper is to address the effect of sequence of success and the involvement of participant (the participant performed the task himself or observed another participant performing the task) on human s attributions in a purely chance task (i.e. predicting coin tosses). Langer and Roth (1975) hypothesized that a descending sequence of outcomes, where wins are heavily concentrated at the beginning, would result in the most skill-oriented responses. Also, the effect would be greater on actor than observer. Langer and Roth employed a 3x2 factorial design using three sequence patterns of outcomes (descending, ascending or random) and two groups of participants (actor and observer). In the experiment, actors watched the experimenter flip a coin for 30 times and predicted the outcome on each toss. Observer watched the other participants predicting the tosses. All participants were then given a questionnaire to fill out at the end. The result showed that participant in the descending condition attributed the success to skill the most compared to the other two groups. They perceived themselves as better at the task, remembered more success on the prediction of coin tossing, and predicted more success on future trials compared to the other groups (1). Participants in ascending condition attributed their success more to chance than those in the descending condition but there were

3 no significant difference between ascending and random condition. In conclusion, an early, consistent pattern of success leads to a skill attribution, which then leads to an expectation in future success. Finally, they concluded that the illusion of control (i.e. the perception of control over objectively chance-determined events) is created at the beginning of the sequence. Implications (in relation to the financial world) The findings in the study can be linked to several concepts of financial decision making. Firstly, participants in descending conditions (more wins at the beginning of sequence) expected more success in the future. This can be linked to the concept of overconfidence (2). Overconfidence is the tendency to overestimate the likely occurrence of a set of events (3), i.e. the correct prediction of coin tossing in this case. However, overconfidence may lead people to make probability judgements that are too extreme given the evidence and their knowledge. Making a biased judgement repeatedly may also lead them to the conclusion that they are talented and making the correct decision all the time. Overconfident venture capitalist may overestimate the likelihood that a funded company will succeed (3). Secondly, the results can be linked to the concept of recallability (4), i.e. the tendency for people to base their predictions about future events on their memory of past events. Participants who exposed to more wins at the beginning also predicted more wins in the future trials. In the financial world, entrepreneurs may become more optimistic about their future investment if their previous investments were successful, hence become riskier in the next investments.

4 Thirdly, previous studies found that most people entertain beliefs biased in the direction of optimism (5,6), i.e. optimism effect. It was found that when estimating the level of the stock market in a year time, assessor s 98% confidence intervals only include the true quantity of approximately 60% of the time (5). In the coin tossing experiment, participants in the descending sequence were more prone to optimism and wishful thinking as they were found to perceive themselves as better at the task, remember more successful trials and also predict more success on future trials. In financial decision making, traders and investors could also become more optimistic on their investment after priming with early success. After priming with several successes, they could become overconfident and optimistic on their future investment (7). So the concepts of overconfidence, recallability and optimism actually interact with each other. Critical Appraisal Does the study add anything new? Previous studies found that people usually attribute their success to their own skills but attribute the failures to chance or other external factors (8,9). Langer & Roth (1975) were the first to apply the concept of attribution to a chance task, and they developed the concept of illusion of control based on previous work. Did the study address key source of bias? The study has addressed the key sources of bias. Participants were randomly assigned to the 6 conditions. Also, participants were blind to the real aim of the experiment by lying about the purpose of the study using false debriefs. Are the results convulsive? All 90 participants were male psychology undergraduate students from Yale University. The data only represents a small population. The results might be different if both female and male were tested because there is a difference in the brain structure between genders, which have an effect on their behaviour (10).

5 Further Research Personality is a popular area in psychological research. Individual differences in personality often have an effect on people s behaviour. Previous research found that extraversion significantly predicts overconfidence, whereas openness significantly predicts confidence but not overconfidence (11). Since Langer and Roth (1965) s study found that the participants attribute their success more to their personal own skills and become overconfidence (predicting more success in the future) when they were exposed to more success (more wins) at the beginning of the sequence, we could extend the research area and test whether personality have an effect on the attribution in a purely chance task. Based on previous findings (11), I hypothesis that people high on extraversion will be more confident and optimistic on their predictions on future trials. We could recruit equal number of male and female participants from different universities so that the data is more representative. Since there were no differences between ascending and random sequence, for future study I will reduced it to a 2x2 factorial design, with two sequences of outcomes (ascending, descending) as a function of involvement (actor, observer). The methods will be the same as Langer and Roth s study with an addition of the assessment of the Big Five personality. A personality questionnaire (12) will be given to the participants at the end of the experiment. For data analysis, we will examine whether there are any correlations between the Big Five Personality traits and the questionnaire used to assess their predicting ability (1). I predict that there will be a positive correlation between extraversion and the predicting ability. We can also investigate whether there will be any correlations between predicting ability and other personality traits.

6 Reference 1) Langer, E. L., & Roth, J. (1975). Heads I Win, Tails It s Chance: The Illusion of Control as a Function of the sequence of Outcomes in a Purely Chance Task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(6), ) Cox, M. (2012). Overconfidence. [unpublished lecture notes]. PSY3022: The Psychology of Financial Decision Making. Newcastle University, slide ) Zacharakis, A. L., & Shepherd, D. A. (2001). The nature of information and overconfidence on venture capitalists decision making. Journal of Business Venturing, 16(4), ) Cox, M. (2012) Recallability. [unpublished lecture notes]. PSY3022: The Psychology of Financial Decision Making. Newcastle University, slide ) Alpert, M., & Raifa, H. (1982). A progress report on the training of probability assessors. Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heristics and Biases Cambridge University Press, ) Fischoff, B. Slovic, P., & Lichtenstein, S. (1977). Knowing with certainty: The appropriateness of extreme confidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 3, ) Gervais, S., & Odean, T. (2001). Learning to be overconfident. Review of Financial Studies, 14, ) Streufert, S., & Streufert, S. C. (1969) The effects of conceptual structure, failure and success on attributions of casuality and interpersonal attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11,

7 ) Wortman, C. B., Costanzo, P. R., & Witt, T. R. (1973). Effects of anticipated performance on the attributions of casuality to self and others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, ) Kimura, D. (1992). Sex Differences in the Brain. Scientific American, 267(3), ) Schaefer, P. S., William, C. C., Goodie, A. S., Campbell, W. K. (2004). Overconfidence and the Big Five. Journal of Research in Personality, 38(5), ) Eysenck, S. B. G., Eysenck, H. J., & Barrett, P. (1985). A revised version of the Psychoticism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 6, 21-29