We don’t like uncertainty because it takes power away from us - we feel like hostages of fate. Ask any businessman what he prefers, a 90-day lockdown or one that will be reassessed every 30-day window?!
Competitive people generally believe they got what it takes to make a difference. But (implicitly) taking exogenous variables for granted may cause more harm than good - if you think twice, we have less agency than we believe we do; kind of frustrating.
It is a more useful strategy to be open-minded and prepared, distinguishing between what’s on our hands vs what’s not helps delineate the best strategy to cope with the ever-changing landscape.
People high in self-control did worse because they were likely to be seduced by the illusion of control, to think of themselves as having more agency than they did. Successful people were taking much more credit for the good stuff and dismissing all the bad stuff. “That’s just noise. I don’t have to pay attention to it.” In our study, when we switched an environment on them, they didn’t learn. People who weren’t as high in self-control, weren’t as self-confident, said, “Oh, shit, I’m losing money. I better figure out what’s going on.” They ended up doing better. So I became fascinated by the illusion of control. It’s a very useful delusion. It behooves us to think we’re more in control than we are. If we realized how little agency we have, we’d all go insane.
Links that inspired this post: