Imagine two people, Jim and John. Jim planned to succeed in business and accomplished his goal through a series of deliberate steps. John fell into the exact same business success through serendipity and coincidence. Who, if anyone, seems more ‘successful'? According to recent research by a team led by Jesse Preston of the University of Illinois, people display a small but reliable bias toward Jim. Performing an act intentionally - that is, through conscious choice - has the effect of making ‘success' seem just a bit more successful.
In one study, the researchers asked participants type a series of words that appeared on the computer screen. Some participants were presented with one word at a time. Others were presented with pairs of words. These participants could choose which word they wanted to type. The researchers later measured how many mistakes participants made. The results showed that the two groups didn't differ in their actual typing performance. But those who got to choose which words to type rated their own performance higher than those who had no choice in the matter.
Sometimes, however, we intentionally wish to sabotage our performance. Think, for example, of a bright adolescent who intentionally does badly on a test in order to fit in with his or her peers. What happens in circumstances when "success" means doing badly? Preston et al. addressed this issue in a creative second study. Here, participants were asked to sing a popular song into a tape-recorder as poorly as possible. Some were assigned a song to sing (either "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi, or "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred). Others got to choose which of the three they would sing badly. Those who got to choose thought they had sung worse than those who were simply given a song.
Does this effect extend beyond one's own actions to the perception of someone else's actions? In a third study, the researchers had participants watch video clips of a person throwing things at a photo of either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. (This study was conducted during the heat of the highly contested 2008 Democratic primaries when it was unclear who would emerge as the victor.) Participants were told that the person doing the throwing was either a Clinton supporter or an Obama supporter. Thus, the assumption was that the Clinton supporter would be more motivated to throw things at Obama and the Obama supporter would be more motivated to throw things at Clinton. The results showed that, all things being equal, the Obama supporter was seen as more successful at hitting the target if the target was Clinton than if it was Obama. Likewise, the Clinton supporter was seen as more successful if the target was Obama than if it was Clinton.
According to Preston and colleagues, there is a powerful automatic link in people's minds between intentions and outcome. People assume that virtually all of their actions are preceded by an intention to perform that action. In other words, people fail to adequately account for the role of luck, randomness, and serendipity in producing their behavior. This leads people to assume that higher performance must indicate that the actor "really meant it". Like most assumptions, it works much of the time. But like most assumptions, it is sometimes wrong and can lead people to misperceive reality. So the next time you are evaluating your own performance - or even someone else's performance, be on the alert for this "intention bias".
