To navigate our environment we are often required to quickly and accurately derive simplified patterns from the complexity of life. This dissertation seeks to understand when the process of pattern perception occurs and when it goes awry and individuals falsely or inaccurately perceive patterns. I review the literature on various types of pattern perception, including superstitions, conspiracies, and magical thinking. I suggest that even though many areas of pattern perception are talked about as if they were separate phenomena, there is actually an underlying fundamental relationship among them all. I then go on to investigate potential causal forces behind false pattern perception, specifically looking at lack of control over one's environment. Together the studies demonstrate that lack of control, whether primed through a recall task (Studies 1, 2, and 6) experimentally manipulated through a response task (Studies 3 and 4), or manipulated within a scenario (Experiment 5), results in greater pattern perception. The patterns that participants perceived range from order in random static, to superstitious causal connections between events, to conspiracies, to finding patterns in the stock market. The final experiment (Experiment 6) provides more evidence that these effects on pattern perception are motivational by finding that self-affirmation can ameliorate false pattern perception triggered by lack of control. This dissertation has implications for a plethora of situations in which cognition is important, from stock market investment decisions to CEOs navigating the complexities of their industry to individuals deciding whether they can trust their coworkers.

Last modified

• 08/28/2018

Creator

• Jennifer Ann Whitson

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2ZQ6Q

Subject

• Management and Organizations

Keyword

• uncertainty
• information processing
• decion-making
• control
• sensemaking
• pattern perception

Date created

• 2007-12-07

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright