The illusion of control


	The illusion of control

egoldstein

7-24-2009 9:23 AM

236 views

tags:

psychology

egoldstein says:

Some interesting insight into human psychology. Clipped from an article by Malcolm Gladwell discussing how psychology played a role in the recent Wall Street debacle. Personally, i think it was one thing - greedy bastards who didn't give a shit what happened to other people as long as they got rich.

3 Comments |

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7-24-2009 9:55 AM

Antara

I have learned a lot of useful stuff from Malcolm Gladwell, I loved his book BLINK.

7-24-2009 10:50 AM

Kelika

I'll have to check out the book. Great clip, thanks!

7-24-2009 2:54 PM

Antara

Kelika, he really changed my thinking around 2 issues in particular: Suicide and Smoking. He is a really interesting guy.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/8ec20bb2-feea-40b9-9d0a-c275f1937a1b/1CFA5012-8E06-4A7B-8BD0-25CBBF2D2F10/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/07/27/090727fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=2" href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/07/27/090727fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=2" style="font-size: 11px;">www.newyorker.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/07/27/090727fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=2">The psychologist Ellen Langer once had subjects engage in a betting game against either a self-assured, well-dressed opponent or a shy and badly dressed opponent (in Langer’s delightful phrasing, the “dapper” or the “schnook” condition), and she found that her subjects bet far more aggressively when they played against the schnook. They looked at their awkward opponent and thought, I’m better than he is. Yet the game was pure chance: all the players did was draw cards at random from a deck, and see who had the high hand. This is called the “illusion of control”: </blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/1CFA5012-8E06-4A7B-8BD0-25CBBF2D2F10/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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