This is why we misinterpret life’s weird and wonderful random events
Basketball players, coaches, and fans agree: a person is more likely to make a shot after they’ve successfully completed one or multiple consecutive shots than after they’ve had a miss. Players therefore know to “feed” the teammate who’s “hot.” Coaches know to bench the one who’s not. This understanding is dittoed for the batter who’s on a hitting streak, the poker player who’s drawing strong hands and the stock picker who has a run of soaring successes.
The scientific story did not, however, end in 1985 with Gilovich and his colleagues. Their analyses stimulated a host of follow-up studies of streaks in free-throw shooting, as well as in baseball, golf and tennis. Occasional examples of a slight hot hand have appeared, as in NBA three-point shooting contests—but nothing like the 25 percent increase in shots made following a make that was estimated by Philadelphia 76er players surveyed in Gilovich’s team’s study.
“After a single make his FG% [field goal percentage] was almost identical to the one expected based on the shot quality.” “After three consecutive makes his FG% was 7.5 percentage units below expectation.” Looking over the sequence, patterns jump out. For example, on the 30th to 38th tosses, set in boldface above, I had a “cold hand,” with only one head in nine tosses. But then my fortunes reversed with a “hot hand”: six heads out of seven tosses. Did I mentally snap out of my tails funk and get in a heads groove? No, these are the sorts of streaks found in any random sequence.
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