What-if analysis and the illusion of control

The present research hypothesizes that what-if analysis creates an "illusion of control" which causes people to overestimate its effectiveness. The study reported below 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 whatif analysis due to overconfidence.