Heroin Abstainers’ Illusion Of Control On Drug Use Concequence

In our daily lives,one’s perception for how much one can control the outcome of an event is not exactly accurate.In many circumstances,people overestimate the extent to which a person is capable of controlling for the event outcomes.This phenomenon is regarded as the illusion of control(IOC)in social psychology.Numerous studies have shown that people with behavioral disorders are often accompanied with the abnormal level of IOC.However,within this domain,previous researches mainly emphasized the effects of craving-inducing drug-related cues and behavioral inhibition failure on addictive behaviors.The influence of addicts’ perceived outcome controlability on activating their compulsive drug using behaviors was largely neglected,which would be systematically investigated in the present study by introducing the concept of IOC into the addiciton research.It will be of great theoretical significance for understanding the mechanism of IOC in the addicted population and in line constructing an integrated theoretical model for drug abuse and addictive behaviors comprehensively.Given the highly addictive and destructive nature of heroin,the present study targeted the heroin dependent population.Consisted of two parts with six experiments,the study employed a cross-situational and cross-measuremental approach to systematically reveal the fundamental characteristics of IOC in heroin abstainers,and accordingly establish a general cognitive process model of IOC.Furthermore,the study investigated the relationship between heroin abstainers’ IOC and their addictive behaviors.The first part of the study focused on the fundamental characteristics of heroin abstainers’ IOC via three experiments(Exp 1-3).Besides,based on machine learning techniques and results from a behavioral experiment,an internal cognitive process model of people’s controllability belief was established in order to discuss the mechanism reflecting the self-modulating process of one’s controllability belief.The second part of the study further explored the relationship between heroin abstainers’IOC and their execution function,which plays a crucial role in inhibiting the occurrence of addictive behaviors,and the influence of the exposure to drug-related cues on IOC.The main findings of the present study were as following:(1)Heroin abstainers demonstrate the abnormal overestimation of the event outcome controllability in comparison with healthy normal people,which remains consistent across situations and measurements.Meanwhile,the high stability of IOC on heroin abstainers suggest that their IOC is relatively difficult to be modulated by feedbacks.(2)The more impaired inhibition ability heroin abstainers have,the more profound IOC they possess.(3)Compared with exposure to neutral cues,heroin abstainers illustrate significantly enhanced IOC after exposure to heroin drug-related cues.Beased on the present findings,the author suggested that addicts’ the cognitive process of outcome controlability(IOC)may be the key mediating factor underlying the influence of drug-related cues on their execution functions(the reflective process).By introducing the concept of IOC,the author supplemented and developed the dual process model of addiction.Moreover,the proposed cognitive process model of perceived controlability describs the dynamic processing of controlability beliefs during the interactions between the individuals and the surrounding environments.The model not only entails significant value for IOC theories,but also have its potential application in the future addictions researches.