Klusowski Joowon, Small Deborah A, Simmons Joseph P
Department of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Department of Operations, Information, and Decisions, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Psychol Sci. 2021 Feb;32(2):159-172. doi: 10.1177/0956797620958009. Epub 2021 Jan 5.
Previous research suggests that choice causes an illusion of control-that it makes people feel more likely to achieve preferable outcomes, even when they are selecting among options that are functionally identical (e.g., lottery tickets with an identical chance of winning). This research has been widely accepted as evidence that choice can have significant welfare effects, even when it confers no actual control. In this article, we report the results of 17 experiments that examined whether choice truly causes an illusion of control ( = 10,825 online and laboratory participants). We found that choice rarely makes people feel more likely to achieve preferable outcomes-unless it makes the preferable outcomes actually more likely-and when it does, it is not because choice causes an illusion but because choice reflects some participants' preexisting (illusory) beliefs that the functionally identical options are not identical. Overall, choice does not seem to cause an illusion of control.
先前的研究表明，选择会造成一种控制错觉——即它会让人们觉得更有可能实现更好的结果，即使他们是在功能相同的选项中进行选择（例如，中奖几率相同的彩票）。这项研究已被广泛接受为证据，证明即使选择并未赋予实际控制权，它也可能产生重大的福利效应。在本文中，我们报告了17项实验的结果，这些实验检验了选择是否真的会造成控制错觉（共10825名在线和实验室参与者）。我们发现，选择很少会让人们觉得更有可能实现更好的结果——除非它真的让更好的结果更有可能实现——而当它确实如此时，并非因为选择造成了错觉，而是因为选择反映了一些参与者预先存在的（错误）信念，即功能相同的选项并非完全一样。总体而言，选择似乎并不会造成控制错觉。
