You make a decision, things go well, and the explanation seems obvious: you judged the situation correctly. Next time, you trust yourself a little more. The difficult part is working out how much credit your judgement deserves.
Researchers have used blackjack and other chance-based tasks to examine how people remember performance and form expectations about what comes next. Their findings sit alongside research on perceived control and the way results influence our assessment of decisions. Together, these studies offer ways to question the certainty we carry into choices about work, money and personal goals.
Choosing something gives us a personal connection to the outcome. In some experiments, that involvement has affected how people respond to chance.
Psychologist Ellen Langer investigated this in her 1975 paper on the illusion of control. Across six studies, she examined features associated with skill, including choice, familiarity and competition, in chance-based situations.
One experiment involved lottery tickets. People who chose their ticket requested an average of $8.67 to sell it, compared with $1.96 among those assigned a ticket.
Later research using a card-guessing task with 78 participants found higher confidence on trials when people exercised apparent control than in the baseline condition.
These findings give us a question to ask after making a choice: what, specifically, did my action influence? Naming that connection helps separate our involvement from the power we attribute to it.
The explanations we form afterwards deserve attention too. Replaying an event can involve remembering what happened and imagining how it could have ended differently.
In a 2009 study by John V. Petrocelli and Laura C. Crysel, 56 undergraduates played 40 computerised blackjack games. The researchers gave participants different instructions for writing down their thoughts after outcomes.
Those instructed to focus on imagined alternatives after losses showed the greatest overestimation of their previous performance and confidence about future play. Actual performance was similar across the groups.
The analysis linked the thought instructions to future confidence through overestimated past performance. In this experiment, dwelling on alternative outcomes affected both remembered performance and expectations.
For everyday reflection, try writing down what happened before considering what could have happened. After a project, for instance, record the outcome, then set out your explanation separately. That gives you something concrete to consult when reviewing the experience later.
Even with an accurate record, knowing the ending can influence how sensible the earlier choice appears.
Jonathan Baron and John C. Hershey demonstrated this in five studies published in 1988. Participants evaluated decisions involving medical matters or monetary gambles. Favourable outcomes produced more positive assessments of the thinking behind decisions, the decision-maker’s competence or willingness to trust that person with another decision.
A 2023 preregistered replication with 692 participants reproduced outcome bias in medical decision scenarios. It also appeared among participants who said outcomes should be excluded when judging decision quality.
This distinction matters when deciding which lessons to take from success. After a job change works out, you can examine the questions you asked, information you gathered and alternatives you considered. Those details help identify useful habits you can apply to another choice.
Confidence itself has different forms. Researchers Don A. Moore and Paul J. Healy distinguish between overestimating performance and being excessively certain about a judgement.
That difference is worth noticing. You might believe your contribution made a project successful, while also feeling certain that you understand exactly why it worked.
Review each belief separately. What did you complete? What did other people contribute? Which circumstances helped? Then consider how firmly those details support your explanation.
This approach gives you a clearer account of your own work while making room for everything else that contributed to the result.
One practical exercise is to consider another plausible interpretation. In two experiments published in 1984, Charles G. Lord, Mark R. Lepper and Elizabeth Preston found that prompting people to consider opposing possibilities reduced bias in social judgement more effectively than asking them to be fair and unbiased.
Try asking:
Return to these questions after setbacks as well as successes. They offer a way to examine your reasoning before carrying its lessons into another decision.
Gambling carries financial and wellbeing risks. If it is causing distress or becoming difficult to control, seek support from a qualified professional or local gambling-support service.
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