People are sense-making creatures in a world that does not always make sense. This is a problem – although we prefer our world and environment to be orderly and predictable, and an expanding body of research shows that we do not like randomness and a lack of control over life’s outcomes (Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callan, & Laurin, 2008; Lerner, 1980), our world and our social environment are far from perfectly orderly and controlled. Life in modern society can be complex and uncertain, and randomness, risk, and unpredictability are never far away. Consider terrorism, climate-change, recession, social unrest, and war— the list could go on and on. There are many examples of societal and natural instability, crisis, and threat that might instill the view that we live in a ‘risk society’ (Beck, 1992) or even in the ‘age of anxiety’ (Twenge, 2000). Threats to our cherished perceptions of order do not necessarily stem from large-scale societal and natural events; they can also be triggered by events in our personal lives, sometimes quite mundane. Consider boarding an airplane, or recall (and try not to get angry) the last time your laptop crashed. Such events also lower our perceptions of control. Likewise, when we unexpectedly get fired or when someone close to us suddenly falls ill, we may be struck by life’s randomness and unpredictability.

(Author Note. The writing of this article was supported by a Niels Stensen Fellowship awarded to the first author.)

People are highly motivated to impose order and causality on a sometimes chaotic world (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996; Landau et al., 2004; Lerner, 1980; Pittman, 1998). Why did something happen, or why did something not take place (see Kray et al., 2010; Norenzayan & Lee, 2010)? Can I, or someone else, predict if an event is likely to reoccur in the future? Given that it is inevitable for people to encounter or experience events that threaten perceptions of order, predictability, and control, it is not surprising that they have developed a wide array of cognitive and motivational strategies that help them to restore these perceptions. This restoration can be domain-specific, that is, consist of an attempt to restore a sense of personal control or reinterpret the threat. Moreover, when such (domain-specific) restoration is not possible people can compensate by affirming order in a potentially different domain (a process known in the literature as ‘fluid compensation’ or affirmation; see Steele, 1988; Proulx & Inzlicht, in press). In other words, when we lack control or when the world seems to operate in random and unpredictable ways, we can turn to threat compensation strategies that either remove the threat directly by restoring perceptions of control (regulation; Rutjens, van Harreveld, & van der Pligt, in 2013; Rutjens, 2012; see also Ruiter, Abraham, & Kok, 2001) or help us cope by affirming control or order elsewhere (compensation). Indeed, threats to personal control have been found to enhance belief in God (Kay et al., 2008; see also Spilka, Shaver, & Kirkpatrick, 1985), belief in intelligent design (Rutjens, van der Pligt, & van Harreveld, 2010), the endorsement of conspiracies (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008), system defense (Kay et al., 2008), susceptibility to superstitious thinking (Keinan, 2002; Vyse, 1997), stereotyping (Burris & Rempel, 2004), in-group defense (Fritsche, Jonas, & Fankhanel, 2008), and the perception of illusory patterns (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008).

The compensatory control model (CCM; Kay et al., 2008; Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2009) can be employed to explain these effects; which all can be seen as ways to maintain or increase perceptions of order. Simply put, the CCM argues that when personal control is low, people can compensate by bolstering belief in external sources of control (see also Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982). Thus, control-threat motivates people to bolster their belief in a controlling God, strong government, or affirm their membership of a powerful in-group, because these offer external control. Superstitious beliefs and falsely detecting patterns and causality can be interpreted as attempts to restore personal control (i.e., illusory control, Langer, 1975; Matute, 1994; Rothbaum et al., 1982; Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). It is important to note that the basic tenet of the CCM is that maintaining perceptions of order and avoiding perceptions of randomness is the core motive, and that personal (either illusory or real) and external control are intersubstitutable means to maintain these order perceptions. Given that the CCM argues that personal and external control are interchangeable, hydraulic sources of order, and that perceiving order and stability in the world is the primary motivation underlying control motivation, compensation would be – according to the model – functionally equivalent to regulation.

Fig. 1. An analogy (Kay et al., 2008) to explain the compensatory control model. Imagine that a full glass represents sufficient perceived order and stability in the world. We can start by filling the glass with personal control over outcomes. Since this often will not suffice (personal control tends to fluctuate) we add to the order-cocktail a certain amount of external control. Together, personal control and external control should fill the glass completely. When one source of order fluctuates (e.g., decreases), the other does so too (e.g., increases).   

Ample research indeed has shown that threats to personal control trigger attempts to restore personal control (e.g., Whitson & Galinsky, 2008) and affirm external control (Fritsche et al., 2008; Kay et al., 2008; 2009). Moreover, threats to external control similarly spark attempts to restore personal control (Kay et al., 2008) and bolster alternative sources of external control (Kay, Shepherd, Blatz, Chua, & Galinsky, 2010). Directly threatening order perceptions, finally, has similar effects on bolstering faith in external sources of control (Kay, Moscovitch, & Laurin, 2010).

Thus, research until now has primarily focused on two routes to sustain or meet a belief in an orderly world: maintaining personal control over life and future outcomes, and bolstering belief in –mostly religious and socio-political— external systems or agents that exert control over the world. Inspired by CCM’s contention that maintaining order perceptions is the primary motivation, however, we have been pursuing a research program that aims to extend the model by venturing beyond external agency (such as belief in a controlling God or government) and focusing on threat compensation without external control. More specifically, we focused on science.

 Scientific belief systems as threat compensation

 As described in the previous paragraph, research has primarily focused on how personal control and external control help create order in the world. Recently, however, we proposed (in line with CCM’s assumptions) that a) order affirmations that do not involve external control can also suffice, and that b) science may function as such a source of order (Rutjens et al., 2013; Rutjens et al., 2012). The research that we will describe in the remaining part of the article focuses on scientific theories that impose order on reality, and on more general beliefs about scientific progress. . 

Scientific worldviews and theories.

In one study we addressed the possibility of non-agentic compensation (Rutjens et al., 2010). We investigated whether order can be conferred from both religious and scientific views on the origin of life, and to what extent an external agent (in this case a deity) is a necessity in this process. We employed three perspectives on the origin of life. The first was intelligent design (describing a controlling agent providing order), the second was Darwin’s theory of evolution (no agent, theory allows for a certainl level of randomness and unpredictability), and the third was an orderly perspective on evolution, as put forward by Conway-Morris in 1995 (no agent, but theory emphasizes an orderly view on evolution). We manipulated personal control-threat and let participants choose between any set of two of these perspectives. When participants were asked to choose between intelligent design and Darwin’s classic theory of evolution, we found that control-threat led to a marginally significant preference shift in favour of intelligent design. We also found that for those whose control had been threatened, the orderly perspective on evolution became more attractive, but only when the alternative was Darwin’s theory of evolution (and not intelligent design). Finally, control-threat had no effect on participants that were asked to choose between the orderly perspective on evolution and intelligent design.

A second set of studies investigated the effects of threat on theory preference in science (Rutjens, van Harreveld, van der Pligt, Kreemers, & Noordewier, in 2013). We set out to investigate the hypothesis – as alluded to by Shermer (2008) in one of his Scientific American columns– that stage theories help to impose order on reality by explaining processes in terms of an orderly and predictable series of discontinuous steps. Kübler-Ross’s stage theory of grief (1969) is a well-known example (denial - anger - bargaining - depression - acceptance). Continuum theories generally describe processes or developments as more gradual and quantitative, lacking clear disruptions or steps. Three studies showed that a threat to personal control shifted participants’ preferences toward stage theories, when they were required to choose between stage theories and their continuum theory counterparts (the theories were about grief, dementia, and moral development). An additional study showed that stage theories about identity development and musical development are seen as more orderly and predictable (and, interestingly, as less credible) than continuum theories, and illusory pattern perception was found to underlie the effect of control-threat on theory preference. This indicates a motivated search for order.  In addition, one study found similar effects on theory preference as a result of a randomness prime (i.e., a threat to order). Two additional insights that these studies provided were a) that the motivation to perceive order seems to override valence (threat pushed people toward negative predictability over hopeful uncertainty) and b) the appeal particularly seems to lie in the information about the order of the stages that a certain process or phenomenon consists of (Rutjens et al., 2013).

Belief in scientific progress.

The primary need to perceive order in the world, and not the need to bolster belief in the potency of external sources of control per se, led us to explore belief in scientific progress as a worldview that might harbour a compensatory order function. Belief in progress has received considerable attention in philosophy (Gray, 2004, 2007; Russell, 1929) and historiography (Brunner, 1972; Bury, 1955), some of this work provides clues about the potential compensatory function of bolstering beliefs in human and technological advances. Indeed, endorsing the belief that the course of scientific endeavour and societal history follows an upward trend could well help to see the world as orderly and under control, and a view on the course of human history as predictable. For example, consider how scientific progress might lead to medical advances that enable humanity to control hitherto uncontrollable diseases, and to technological advances that allow us to reduce unpredictability and lack of information. In this line of research we tested whether a control-threat would enhance belief in progress (Rutjens, van Harreveld, & van der Pligt, 2010) and whether affirming belief in progress helps to increase perceptions of order (Meijers & Rutjens, under review). Indeed, we found that control-threat increased the motivation to defend the idea of human progress and led to more faith in both scientific and societal advances occurring in the future. We also found that a threat to personal control led to an enhanced willingness to invest in stem cell research and nanotechnology.

In another set of studies, Meijers and Rutjens (under review) provided evidence for the functional value of affirming belief in scientific progress. One study, in which belief in progress was manipulated, found that a fake newspaper article describing science as rapidly progressing led to higher perceived order in the world than an article that questioned scientific advances. Moreover, they obtained support for the idea that threatening order perceptions triggers the motivation to engage in action with the intention to restore personal control perceptions – here in the domain of environmentally friendly behavior. More specifically, they found that priming disorder led to an increased intention to engage in environmentally sustainable behaviour, which in turn was shown to increase participants’ sense of personal control.

In sum, these lines of research show that control-threat leads to the motivation to believe in scientific progress, that affirming belief in scientific progress enhances order perceptions, and that disorder perceptions trigger attempts to boost personal control. These findings support CCM’s tenet that personal control and external control are intersubstitutable sources of order, and that threatened order perceptions enhance the motivation to seek compensation in such sources. As an example, threatening the viability of an external source of control (questioning scientific advances) led to decreases in order perceptions, which in turn triggered attempts to boost personal control. Thus, somewhat ironically, questioning scientific progress can reduce personal action inertia, while along similar lines low personal control can motivate people to learn more about scientific advances. 

Conclusion

The majority of research on threat compensation in the domain of order and control has focused on religious belief (e.g., Kay et al., 2008; Spilka et al., 1985) and secular worldviews that explicitly mention external agency that provides secondary, or vicarious, control (e.g., Kay et al., 2008; 2010, see also Rothbaum et al., 1982). In the current paper, we aimed to show that compensation for decreased perceptions of control and order can also be realized without control, that is, by merely affirming order in the environment. Moreover, Meijers and Rutjens (under review) provided first evidence for the functional value of affirming external sources of order: order perceptions were actually enhanced after belief in scientific progress was affirmed. Moreover, threatening another source of order (in this case, personal control) triggered a motivated search to perceive order in the environment, as we found in our studies on scientific theory preference (Rutjens et al., in press). In that sense, to return to a point we made earlier in this article, compensation seems to be equivalent to regulation. Maintaining perceptions of the world as orderly, stable, and structured is the primary motive (Kay et al., 2008), and affirming the notion of scientific progress indeed enhanced such perceptions, while threatening personal control instigated a search for such perceptions.   

Threat compensation without external control opens up the possibility of venturing beyond the established defensive compensatory strategies, which often involve religious and socio-political endorsement of external systems and intergroup phenomena (Rutjens et al., 2012). Indeed, we have described some initial evidence for the contention that such compensatory order can be found in the realm of science. Certain scientific theories, beliefs, and worldviews –such as stage theories and faith in scientific progress – seem particularly well-suited to imbue our environment with order. In other words, science can help to psychologically make sense of the world. This opens up exciting avenues for future research. For example, given the hydraulic relationship between external sources of control (Kay et al., 2010), it would be fascinating to explore whether this substitutability would also hold for scientific versus religious and socio-political worldviews. Whereas religious and socio-political beliefs might often converge (Kay et al., 2010), science and religion compete for the same explananda (Preston & Epley, 2009) and as such are often argued to be incompatible. Given this historically complex relationship between science and religion (Blancke et al., 2011), it remains to be seen to what extent they will prove to be entirely intersubstitutable sources of order when people are trying to make sense of the world.

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