Who Do I (Not) Ask to Play my Lottery? Effects of Perceived Positive and Negative Agency, Communion and Luck on the Illusion of Control by Proxy

AbstractThe paper investigates the illusion of control by proxy in games of chance - an attempt to exert control by assigning it to others who are perceived as more capable, communable or luckier. Following up on research by Wohl& Enzle, who showed participants ’ preference to ask lucky others to play a lottery instead of doing it themselves, we included proxies with positive and negative qualities in the domains of agency and communion, as well good and bad luck. In three experiments (total N = 249) we tested participants’ choices between these pr oxies and a random number generator in a task consisting of obtaining lottery numbers. We obtained consistent preventative illusions of control (i.e. avoidance of proxies with strictly negative qualities, as well as proxies with positive communion but negative agency), however we observed indifferen ce between proxies with positive qualities and random number generators.

Source: Journal of Gambling Studies - June 20, 2023 Category: Addiction Source Type: research