How people understand their world: perceived randomness of rare life events

The authors asked 220 undergraduate students to decide the extent to which a series of rare life events were random or nonrandom. The authors examined the associations of these perceptions with gender and locus of control (LOC). They also examined whether participants perceived events differently when arranged on 3 axes (positive events vs. negative events; natural events vs. person-related events; events happening to self vs. events happening to others). The results support most of the hypotheses. Participants with more external LOC perceived various events to be less random than did participants with more internal LOC. Male participants perceived various events to be more random than did female participants. Participants judged natural events to be more random than man-made events. Contrary to the authors' hypothesis, participants perceived positive events to be more random than negative events. There were also no differences between vignettes relating to self versus others. The authors discuss the implications of the findings for further research and the understanding of decision-making processes in everyday settings.