Taking credit for success: The phenomenology of control in a goal-directed task

• Published in: Consciousness and cognition Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 48 - 62
• Main Authors: Dewey, John A., Seiffert, Adriane E., Carr, Thomas H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.03.2010; Elsevier; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Achievement; Action; Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Child clinical studies; Cognition & reasoning; Competition; Competitive Behavior; Control; Developmental disorders; Feedback; Female; Goals; Humans; Internal-External Control; Judgment; Male; Medical sciences; Models, Psychological; Motor ability; Phenomenology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychomotor Performance; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Self Concept; Task Performance and Analysis; Visual Perception; Competition; Control; Action; Feedback; Human; Feedback regulation; Cognition; Experimental study; Phenomenology; Goal; Body movement; Self control; Motricity
• ISSN: 1053-8100; 1090-2376
• DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2009.09.007

We studied how people determine when they are in control of objects. In a computer task, participants moved a virtual boat towards a goal using a joystick to investigate how subjective control is shaped by (1) correspondence between motor actions and the visual consequences of those actions, and (2) attainment of higher-level goals. In Experiment 1, random discrepancies from joystick input (noise) decreased judgments of control (JoCs), but discrepancies that brought the boat closer to the goal and increased success (the autopilot) increased JoCs. In Experiment 2, participants raced to the goal against a computer-controlled rival boat while varying levels of noise interfered with each boat. Participants reached the goal more often and rated their own control higher when the computer rival had good control. Subjective control over moving objects depends partly on consistency between motor actions and their effects, but is also modulated by perceived success and competition.