Does Framing the Hot Hand Belief Change Decision-Making Behavior in Volleyball? (original) (raw)
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Purpose: Previous discussions of the hot hand belief, wherein athletes believe that they have a greater chance of scoring after 2 or 3 hits (successes) compared with 2 or 3 misses, have focused on whether this is the case within game statistics. Researchers have argued that the perception of the hot hand in random sequences is a bias of the cognitive system. Yet most have failed to explore the impact of framing on the stability of the belief and the behavior based on it. Method: The authors conducted 2 studies that manipulated the frame of a judgment task. In Study 1, framing was manipulated via instructions in a playmaker allocation paradigm in volleyball. In Study 2, the frame was manipulated by presenting videos for allocation decisions from either the actor or observer perspective. Results: Both manipulations changed the hot hand belief and sequential choices. We found in both studies that the belief in continuation of positive or negative streaks is nonlinear and allocations to the same player after 3 successive hits are reduced. Conclusions: The authors argue that neither the hot hand belief nor hot hand behavior is stable, but rather, both are sensitive to decision frames. The results can inform coaches on the importance of how to provide information to athletes.
The Hot Hand Exists in Volleyball and Is Used for Allocation Decisions
The "hot hand" belief in sports refers to the conviction that a player has a higher chance of making a shot after two or three successful shots than after two or three misses (resulting in "streaks"). This belief is usually considered a cognitive fallacy, although it has been conjectured that in basketball the defense will attack a "hot" player and prevent streaks from occurring. To address this argument, we provide the first study on the hot hand in volleyball, where the net limits direct defensive counterstrategies, meaning that streaks can more likely emerge if a player is hot. We first establish that athletes believe in the hot hand in volleyball (Study 1A). Analyzing the top 26 first-division players, we then show that streaks do exist for half of the players (Study 1B). Coaches can detect players' performance variability and use it to make strategic decisions (Study 2A). Playmakers are also sensitive to streaks and rely on them when deciding to whom to allocate the ball (Study 2B). We conclude that for volleyball the hot hand exists, coaches and playmakers are able to detect it, and playmakers tend to use it "adaptively," which results in more hits for a team.
Beliefs about the "hot hand" in basketball across the adult life span
Many people believe in streaks. In basketball, belief in the "hot hand" occurs when people think a player is more likely to make a shot if they have made previous shots. However, research has shown that players' successive shots are independent events. To determine how age would impact belief in the hot hand, we examined this effect across the adult life span. Older adults were more likely to believe in the hot hand, relative to younger and middle-aged adults, suggesting that older adults use heuristics and potentially adaptive processing based on highly accessible information to predict future events.
The Hot Hand in Basketball: Fallacy or Adaptive Thinking? The Hot Hand as Fallacy
In basketball, players believe that they should "feed the hot hand," by giving the ball to a player more often if that player has hit a number of shots in a row. However, analyzed basketball players' successive shots and showed that they are independent events. Thus the hot hand seems to be a fallacy. Taking the correctness of their result as a starting point, I suggest that if one looks at the hot hand phenomena from Gigerenzer & Todd's (1999) adaptive thinking point of view, then the relevant question to ask is does belief in the hot hand lead to more scoring by a basketball team? By simulation I show that the answer to this question is yes, essentially because streaks are predictive of a player's shooting percentage. Thus belief in the hot hand may be an effective, fast and frugal heuristic for deciding how to allocate shots between member of a team.
Shaping decisions in volleyball: An ecological approach to decision-making in volleyball passing
To extend research on decision-making in sport we addressed the choices volleyball-players are faced with in a simple volleyball pass-return task. We manipulated the distance that eight experienced volleyball players had to cover for successful ball passing, and mapped their passing technique (i.e., overhead or underhand) and ball return accuracy in a choice condition. Passing accuracy was then compared with conditions in which reception technique was imposed by instruction. When players were free to choose their technique the landing zone of the ball influenced the choice of technique: When a ball landed further away, the adoption of underhand technique increased, especially for balls that landed in front of the participants. Furthermore, in all conditions the accuracy of the pass decreased with increasing distance to be covered. These results are discussed vis-à-vis the idea that player behavior is shaped by affordances (i.e., possibilities for action). It is argued that to understand decision-making in dynamic sport situations we need to understand how players deal with competing affordances.
Hot hand belief and hot hand behavior: A comment on Koehler and Conley
Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2004
In our comment on findings on the "hot hand" belief, we want to emphasize the different conclusions that can be drawn from their results by applying the concept of ecological rationality. The choice of environmental contexts and structures imposes constraints on possible interpretations of the results obtained. Differentiating between the cognitive and behavioral levels of the phenomenon seems analytically useful, particularly if practical recommendations to professionals are to be made. The implications of Koehler and Conley's data, new evidence, and the relationship between the perceived streaks of players and their base rates are discussed with the aim of developing empirically founded recommendations to professionals in sports, especially in real game situations.
Motivated reasoning in the prediction of sports outcomes and the belief in the "hot hand
Cognition & emotion, 2016
The present paper explores the role of motivation to observe a certain outcome in people's predictions, causal attributions, and beliefs about a streak of binary outcomes (basketball scoring shots). In two studies we found that positive streaks (points scored by the participants' favourite team) lead participants to predict the streak's continuation (belief in the hot hand), but negative streaks lead to predictions of its end (gambler's fallacy). More importantly, these wishful predictions are supported by strategic attributions and beliefs about how and why a streak might unfold. Results suggest that the effect of motivation on predictions is mediated by a serial path via causal attributions to the teams at play and belief in the hot hand.
The effect of perceived streakiness on the shot-taking behaviour of basketball players
European journal of sport science, 2014
We examine behavioural changes of basketball players arising from the hot-hand belief and use data of 1216 National Basketball Association games to measure the effect of cold and hot streaks on three proxies of shot difficulty. We find that the more consecutive shots players make (miss), the more difficult (easier) shots become along the three dimensions. Furthermore, most players' performance seems to improve during hot streaks because they attempt more difficult shots while no significant decrease in shooting accuracy takes place. This might explain why most previous studies could not find empirical evidence for the hot-hand belief in basketball when considering in-game field goal shooting.
Applying the Recognition-Primed Decision Model to Differentiate Players’ Role in Volleyball
2021
The Recognition-primed decision model (RPDM) explains how experts make decisions when facing situations related to their area of expertise. Key decision makers among experts in a given field can sometimes be identified based on their roles and responsibilities. The aim of this study is to analyze, using the RPDM, how the anticipation process of experts with decisional responsibilities, namely setters in volleyball, differs from that of other experts and non-experts when facing context-specific situations. Twenty-five setters, 36 other players, and 19 controls watched 50 volleyball video sequences: 10 services, 10 receptions, 10 sets, 10 attacks, and 10 blocks. Sequences stopped 120 ms before ball contact, and participants had to explain their anticipation process by answering four questions verbally: “What would you do facing this situation?”, “What were you looking at?”, “What were you thinking of?”, and “What led you to this decision?”. Answers were transcribed verbatim. Scores we...