Inducing illusory control ensures persistence when rewards fade and when others outperform us

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Inducing illusory control ensures persistence when rewards fade and when others outperform us Bettina Studer 1,2 & Shawn N. Geniole 3,4,5 & Maike L. Becker 3 & Christoph Eisenegger 3 & Stefan Knecht 1,2

# The Author(s) 2020

Abstract Persisting even when the rewards of continued effort are fading is essential for achieving long-term goals, skills, and good health, alike. Yet, we often quit when things get hard. Here, we tested whether augmenting the feeling of control through external measures increases persistence under such discouraging circumstances. In two laboratory experiments, we first induced illusory control by manipulating the base-rate of positive outcomes and then tested the effect of this elevation of participants’ perceived control upon their persistence under diminishing returns and in a competition against a stronger opponent. Induced illusory control significantly enhanced people’s persistence in both of these motivationally challenging situations. Our findings demonstrate that motivation is dependent upon perceived, rather than objective, control, and reveal that this can be leveraged to counteract quitting behavior when things get hard, for instance in rehabilitation, physical activity interventions, or other training settings. Keywords Behavior enhancement . Illusion of control . Agency . Persistence . Motivation

Introduction Persisting, even in the absence of reward or progress, is rightfully idealized in our society, as it is essential for achieving long-term goals. For instance, acquiring a new skill, maintaining good health, and regaining lost motor and cognitive Christoph Eisenegger is Deceased on 27 February 2017 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01745-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Bettina Studer [email protected] 1

Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

2

Department of Neurology, Mauritius Hospital Meerbusch, Meerbusch, Germany

3

Neuropsychopharmacology and Biopsychology Unit, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

4

Social-Neuroendocrinology Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, Canada

5

Department of Psychology, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, Canada

functions after brain injury all require intensive training across multiple, repetitive sessions. Yet, particularly when the expected immediate reward is small, our brains’ valuation system is likely to signal that the effort of continuing is not worth it (Bailey, Simpson, & Balsam, 2016; Chong et al., 2017). Early quitting is a frequent phenomenon in physical activity and rehabilitation interventions and drastically hampers their effectiveness. Participants of a physical activity intervention against obesity missed their 10,000 steps a day goal by an average of 4,000 steps (Adams et al., 2013), merely 43% of the absolvents of New Zeal

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