The deployment of personal luck: Illusory control in games of pure chance

Date
2002-10
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sage
Abstract
In three studies, the authors expand on Langer’s (1975) illusion of control model to include perceptions of personal luck as a potential source of misperceived skillful influence over non-controllable events. In an initial study, it was predicted and found that having choice in a game of chance heightened both perceived personal luck and perceived chance of winning. In additional studies, hypotheses were tested based on the proposition that luck perceived as a personal quality follows the laws of sympathetic magic. The results showed that participants acted as though luck could be transmitted from themselves to a wheel of fortune and thereby positively affect their perceived chance of winning. Results are discussed both in terms of the previously unexamined connection between illusory control and beliefs in sympathetic magic and as an extension of the illusory control model.
Description
This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. It is not the copy of record. The official version of scholarly record is accessible from http://psp.sagepub.com/
Keywords
Chance (Fortune), Choice Behavior, Internal External Locus of Control, Magical Thinking
Citation
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1388-1397.