Experts Find Loss Of Control Leads People To
Seek Order, Answers
October 5, 2008
New research published in the journal Science explains why individuals
seek to find and impose order on an unruly world through superstition, rituals
and conspiratorial explanations by linking a loss of control to individual
perceptions. The research finds that a quest for structure or understanding
leads people to trick themselves into seeing and believing connections that
simply don't exist.
The research was done by Adam Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of
Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School of Management at
Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in collaboration with lead author
Jennifer Whitson, an assistant professor at the McCombs School of Business at
the University of Texas at Austin. Through a series of six experiments, the
researchers showed that individuals who lacked control were more likely to see
images that did not exist, perceive conspiracies, and develop superstitions.
"The less control people have over their lives, the more likely they are to
try and regain control through mental gymnastics," said Galinsky.
"Feelings of control are so important to people that a lack of control is
inherently threatening. While some misperceptions can be bad or lead one astray,
they're extremely common and most likely satisfy a deep and enduring
psychological need."
The Need for Control
According to Whitson, that psychological need is for control, and the ability to
minimize uncertainty and predict beneficial courses of action. In situations
where one has little control, the researchers proposed that an individual may
believe that mysterious, unseen mechanisms are secretly at work. To test their
theory, the researchers created a number of situations characterized by lack of
control and then measured whether people saw a variety of illusory patterns.
For example, in one experiment individuals were asked to look at
"snowy" pictures. Half of the pictures were grainy patterns of random
dots, while the other half also contained images like a chair, a boat, or the
planet Saturn, that were faintly visible against the grainy background. While
all people correctly identified 95 percent of the hidden images, the group of
people who had felt their control had been eroded in a previous part of the
experiment also "saw" images in 43 percent of the pictures that were
just random scatterings of dots.
"People see false patterns in all types of data, imagining trends in stock
markets, seeing faces in static, and detecting conspiracies between
acquaintances. This suggests that lacking control leads to a visceral need for
order - even imaginary order," said Whitson.
Explaining Superstitions
To better understand superstitions, Whitson and Galinsky asked a group of
individuals to write about situations they had experienced. Half of them
recalled situations in which they had control, while the other half detailed
paralyzing instances of a loss of control, like car accidents caused by others
or illnesses to friends or family. Following the exercise, all participants read
short stories in which significant outcomes, like getting an idea approved at a
business meeting, were preceded by unrelated behaviors, such as stomping one's
feet three times before entering a meeting. Participants who had initially
written about a situation in which they had no control expressed greater belief
in a superstitious connection to the story's outcome, and were more fearful of
what would happen if the superstitious behavior wasn't properly repeated in the
future.
While foot stomping or lucky socks are quirky and usually harmless, the
participants in the experiment whose feelings of control had been diminished
were more likely to perceive more sinister conspiracies lurking beneath the
surface of innocuous situations. For example, when reading about an employee who
was passed over for a promotion, the powerless participants tended to believe
that private conversations between co-workers and the boss were to blame.
Restoring a Sense of Control
To test whether individuals with diminished power can restore control and
realign their perceptions, the researchers asked participants to rate how
strongly they believed in certain values (like aesthetic beauty or valuing
scientific theory and research). They then asked participants to write about
situations in which they were helpless or lacked control. To restore feelings of
control afterwards, some participants were asked to elaborate on the values they
had rated as important. As a comparison, other participants were asked to
elaborate on the value they held in lowest esteem.
The results were clear: participants who didn't have an opportunity to regain
feelings of control were more likely to perceive visual images that didn't exist
and to perceive conspiracies in innocent situations, while participants who
regained feelings of control by focusing on important personal values were no
different from people who never lost their feelings of self-control in the first
place.
"It's exciting - restoring people's sense of control normalized their
perceptions and behavior," said Galinsky.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Source: Meg Washburn, Kellogg School of Management
Manning Selvage
& Lee
Medical News Today: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
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