What-if analysis and the illusion of control
Davis, F.D.; Kottemann, J.E.; Remus, W.E.
System Sciences, 1991. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Hawaii International Conference on
Volume iii, Issue , 8-11 Jan 1991 Page(s):452 - 460 vol.3
Digital Object Identifier   10.1109/HICSS.1991.184174
Summary:The research presented hypothesizes that what-if analysis creates an `illusion of control' which causes people to overestimate its effectiveness. The study reported found that what-if analysis improved performance for about half of the subjects and degraded performance for the rest in a simulated production scheduling task. However, all subjects but one reported believing what-if to be beneficial to their decision performance. Erroneous beliefs persisted in the face of outcome feedback showing inferior performance when what-if analysis was used. In light of other research linking user acceptance to users' performance perceptions, these results indicate the potential for sustained but dysfunctional use of what-if analysis due to overconfidence

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