For years I have wondered about the disproportionate influence of the final events in sporting contests. If a basketball player makes a shot in the final seconds to turn a loss into a win, the newspaper accounts will typically describe how that shot won the game. Similarly, if the shot misses, then the newspapers will likely explain the loss in terms of that missed shot. Despite all the other plays during the entire game, these final heroics/failures carry a major share of the explanatory power. That seems distorted.
One way to account for these last gasps is in terms of counterfactuals. Decision researchers have shown that we ascribe greater causal impact to events where it is easy to imagine the opposite, such as these last second shots. If we can’t easily imagine an alternative scenario then the event seems inevitable and therefore less consequential. We wouldn’t explain how Shaquille O’Neal affected the score because of his height. That’s just who he is. But if he blocks the desperation shot, we give him full credit for saving the game because he might not have done that.
Building on the notion of counterfactuals, perhaps it is much, much easier to imagine the opposite of a last-second shot precisely because it happened at the last second so it doesn’t influence anything afterwards. A missed shot in the first quarter might change the rhythm of the game, change the nature of the defense played by the other team, change the confidence of the player who made it. So if we try to imagine how the game might have proceeded had the player made the shot it gets very complicated. In contrast, the last-second shot stands alone as a conclusive event.
There may be other reasons for the undue influence of the last tag in sports, but these are at least some ideas to consider.
Comments (3)
Hi Dave
As you know, I have more than a passing interest in sport related subject matter.
You raise a very interesting area for discussion. For many years now most (if not all) Premiership Soccer Clubs in the UK have used a software system known as Prozone which produces huge amounts of 'live' data on an individual player performance in a game eg passes completed, miles covered, tackles made etc.
Players and managers alike can get these stats almost as the game is finished.
What interests me though, is how these stats would relate back to spectator observations about player impact on the game. My contention has always been that the majority of spectators will remember individual moments (such as goals, saves, goal line clearances etc) and attribute these 'high impact' events to the best players, rather than recognise the all round contribution of a player (as displayed in all round prozone stats). This would link to your counterfactual idea.
Of course the truly world class players have both an impact on the game and come out top on the stats.
Posted by Stuart | September 17, 2007 8:47 PM
Posted on September 17, 2007 20:47
Dave, having played basketball and other team sports I fully appreciate your point.
I would suggest to start a conversation with interested practitioners within the network about a possible global multi-client project that we could conceive and launch for professional sport teams, related to managing social complexity within a game, a season, a sub-group within the team. We could structure the program is such a way to create the conditions for partecipants to learn from the social dynamics that typically occur in other sports (and for sure rugby would be a great one to start extracting meaning from ...).
Also sport is a natural context for using powerful metaphors that frequently are then widely used by business people in the corporate world. So I believe such a program can probably generate a number of metaphors, lessons learned and related emerging meaning that can be of great appeal for our practitioners' business clients and prospects.
Maybe this could be even evaluated as one of the topics for the next Cognitive Edge Catalyst Event.
I hope this spark can find in the network enough fuel to turn into a dynamic fire!
Posted by Andrea Mills | September 18, 2007 6:20 PM
Posted on September 18, 2007 18:20
Dave,
A similar phenomenon occurs in medicine and surgery. We know that we are most influenced by our last experience. A recent unusual occurrence (either very good or bad – but an outlier) will influence our decisions about using this approach in the future. Even in cases where we have used an approach successfully for years, the most recent outcome somehow carries more weight than the long-term results in the past. We are aware of this “anecdotal” effect on our decision-making and try not to let it influence us to abandon good practice methods or embrace new ones without more data. But, nevertheless, we know that the last great or bad experience will intuitively carry more weight when confronted with the problem again. This concept is commonly discussed among surgeons.
Posted by Lygia Stewart, MD | September 20, 2007 12:09 AM
Posted on September 20, 2007 00:09