Abstract
Control is a fundamental motive in people's lives and previous research converges on the notion that lack of control is aversive because it undermines epistemic beliefs in the nonrandomness of the world. A key motivation underlying control is therefore the need to perceive the world as structured. However, strong individual differences exist in the extent to which people need structure. Based on this, we reasoned that if structure is indeed a key motive underlying control motivation, instances of low control should be more impactful for people with a high need for structure. We tested this logic in three studies. Results confirmed that participants with high personal need for structure evaluated a control-threat as more important and more negative than those with low personal need for structure. Need for structure did not impact evaluations of instances of control-affirmation. The current research shows that control is indeed important, but even more so for people with a high need for structure.
Highlights
Control has long been considered to be a fundamental motive and a crucial dimension of people’s lives
We notice that an important empirical piece of the puzzle is missing from the current compensatory control literature: If people differ in the extent to which they need structure (Neuberg & Newsom, 1993), and structure underlies compensatory control pro cesses (Kay et al, 2009; Landau et al, 2015), instances of low control should be evaluated as more problematic and as more aversive among people with a high personal need for structure
On the orderly world item there was a main effect of Personal Need for Structure (PNS), no main effect of Control, nor a ControlPNS interaction
Summary
Control has long been considered to be a fundamental motive and a crucial dimension of people’s lives. Over the course of almost four decades, various theories have addressed the importance of resorting to some form of secondary or indirect control as a response to personal control-threats (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Langer, 1975; Rothbaum et al, 1982; Skinner, 1995) This means that when people experience a threat to personal control and cannot directly regain it, they will try to regain a sense of control in a secondary, or indirect, way (e.g., via illusory control or through the search of predictability and understanding; Langer, 1975; Rothbaum et al, 1982; see Helzer & Jayawickreme, 2015)
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