Illusion of control

What it is

Overestimating how much influence we have over outcomes that are largely chance.

Related

• Overconfidence effect bias
  Believing we control outcomes feeds confidence in our predictions.
• Gambler's fallacy fallacy
  Believing we can predict or influence a random outcome is the same temptation that makes the gambler's fallacy feel reasonable.
• Action bias bias
  Doing something makes us feel in control, whether or not it helps.
• Illusion of skill bias
  Both over-credit ourselves for what is largely chance.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#17: Illusion of control

References

• Wikipedia: Illusion of control en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

More in “Deciding and acting: incentives, loss and commitment”