Outcome sequences and illusion of control - Part I: An online replication of Langer & Roth (1975)

ABSTRACT

The illusion of control is an important feature of both problematic and nonproblematic gambling behavior. Crucially, this construct is incorporated in most cognitive models of problem gambling, and is also central in numerous approaches to gambling disorder treatment (e.g. psychological interventions using cognitive restructuring to mitigate the illusion of control). In this preregistered study, we tried to replicate the illusion-of-control effect, as defined and investigated in the seminal work by Langer and Roth, in an online context. Using the same trial procedure and a similar cover story as the original study, we presented three groups of healthy participants (N = 289; crowdsourced sample) with three different sequences of wins and losses in a coin-tossing task. Consistent with the original study, we found that participants presented with more wins at the beginning of a sequence estimated their ability to predict the outcome of a coin-toss higher than participants presented with more losses at the beginning, or those presented with a random sequence, although the effect sizes were small to medium (biggest Hedge’s g_av = 0.49) compared to the original study which yielded larger effect sizes (biggest ηp² = 0.14). Thus, we replicated the findings in an online context, although the effect size was smaller than expected.

KEYWORDS:

• Control beliefs
• illusion of control
• gambling
• replication
• online experiments

Ethical approval

Ethical committee at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science of Ghent University 2019/86

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). This work was supported by an ERC Consolidator grant awarded to FV (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement No 769595).

Preregistration statement

The pre-registrations associated with the experiment can be found on OSF: https://osf.io/qm2a8/registrations.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of these studies are openly available on OSF (https://osf.io/qm2a8/) at DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/QM2A8 in the folder Langer & Roth replication.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/j3hga/?view_only=d676f0cba3634f86bc45ccb215b95bd3

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charlotte Eben

Charlotte Eben is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Ghent University. Her research focuses on behavioral responses to sub-optimal outcomes, action control and impulsivity.

Zhang Chen

Charlotte Eben is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Ghent University. Her research focuses on behavioral responses to sub-optimal outcomes, action control and impulsivity.

Zhang Chen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University. His research focuses on the interrelationships between different aspects of impulsivity (motor and choice impulsivity), how such impulsive behaviours arise and how they may be effectively regulated

Joël Billieux

Zhang Chen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University. His research focuses on the interrelationships between different aspects of impulsivity (motor and choice impulsivity), how such impulsive behaviours arise and how they may be effectively regulated

JoëlBillieux is an Associate Professor of clinical psychology, psychopathology, and psychological assessment. His areas of research include: psychological factors involved in the etiology of addictive behaviors, with a particular focus on self-regulation-related processes; conceptualization and diagnosis of behavioral addictions, and effects of technologies on human behaviour.

Frederick Verbruggen

JoëlBillieux is an Associate Professor of clinical psychology, psychopathology, and psychological assessment. His areas of research include: psychological factors involved in the etiology of addictive behaviors, with a particular focus on self-regulation-related processes; conceptualization and diagnosis of behavioral addictions, and effects of technologies on human behaviour.

Frederick Verbruggen is a Full Professor in Experimental Psychology. He examines how humans and non-human animals withhold or suppress inappropriate or risky actions, adjust behaviour after bad outcomes, and more generally, adapt to dynamic environments. He also studies how (avian) cognitive abilities develop in different ecological contexts.