On the Relationship Between Misperceptions of Randomness and the Self-Serving Bias

• Main Author: Shin, Hye Min
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2013
• Subjects: On the Relationship Between Misperceptions of Randomness and the Self-Serving Bias; Cognition and Perception; Cognitive Psychology
• Online Access: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/675; http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1583&context=cmc_theses

The study looked at how misperceptions of randomness (the gambler’s fallacy or the hot-hand fallacy) would show differences in self-serving-bias through different levels of perceived control. In order to investigate this relationship between misperceptions of randomness, self-serving bias, and perceived control, the study manipulated perceived control by varying who threw the coin (experimenter/participant) and by showing a skill prime to some participants. Thus, in the experiment, participants either saw a skill prime or not by random assignment. Afterwards, the participants predicted an outcome, rated the confidence of the prediction, then the participants would throw a coin for half of the trials while the experimenter would for the other trials. Due to little variability of the self-serving bias, the analysis could not test the hypothesis. However, the study found that other variable such as confidence was able to predict the misperception of randomness when the participants threw the coin.