The Art of Manliness - #596： The Mystery, Science, and Life-Changing Power of the Hot Hand

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast have you had a

00:00:11.620 period in your athletic or professional career where you kind of felt like you were on fire

00:00:15.240 maybe you made a whole streak of consecutive shots in a game or executed one good idea after

00:00:19.160 another at work in his book the hot hand the mystery and science of streaks my guest today

00:00:23.520 explores why success sometimes seems to arrive in clusters like this his name is ben cohen he's a

00:00:28.420 sports writer for the wall street journal ben and i begin our conversation with an explanation of

00:00:32.340 what it means to have a hot hand and how this phenomenon has often been studying in basketball

00:00:36.460 but can also be seen in a wide range of areas including the film career of rob reiner we then

00:00:41.160 discuss what may cause winning streaks whether or not they can be induced and what stephen curry does

00:00:45.560 when he starts feeling hot in a game we also talk about what the video game nba jam can teach us about

00:00:50.700 the psychology of the hot hand boom shakalaka we then dig into what the academic research has found

00:00:55.440 on whether the hot hand truly exists or is really just a cognitive illusion and we enter conversation

00:01:00.580 with what you can start doing today to take advantage of having a hot hand after the show's

00:01:04.480 over check out our show notes at aom.is slash hot hand

00:01:07.400 all right ben cohen welcome to the show thank you for having me so you were a sports writer for the

00:01:23.060 wall street journal you got a new book out the hot hand the mystery and science of streaks so what got

00:01:29.220 you going on this deep dive on whether the hot hand exists in sports well it's a really compelling

00:01:35.760 subject first of all i wrote a few stories about the hot hand for the wall street journal a few years

00:01:40.400 ago and honestly usually what happens after i write stories and think about stories and like spend time

00:01:46.280 talking to people about those stories is that by the time they publish i'm just so sick of them i don't

00:01:51.140 want to think about those stories anymore the opposite kind of happened with these stories that

00:01:55.440 i wrote about the hot hand i wasn't really like exhausted by them i was kind of invigorated by them

00:02:00.320 and i just felt like i was still getting started like i was only scratching the surface of what i could

00:02:05.040 possibly learn about the hot hand so that doesn't happen often and the fact that it did happen made me

00:02:10.380 think that there might be something bigger here so let's talk about what we mean by hot hands i think

00:02:15.880 everyone knows sort of the layman's definition about hot hand so let's talk about that and then

00:02:19.580 let's also talk about what how researchers scientists academics define hot hand sure so i don't think

00:02:25.640 there's like a singular definition of the hot hand i think it means different things in different

00:02:30.140 industries but i like to think of it like very simply as when success leads to more success that's

00:02:36.940 kind of the simplest way to put it so in basketball for example and it's always been studied in basketball

00:02:42.100 which is one of the things that really appealed to me about this idea in basketball it's when you make

00:02:46.500 one shot and then another shot and then another shot and you feel more likely to make your next

00:02:52.460 shot you can't miss you're in the zone you are on fire but what's really irresistible about this

00:02:59.700 phenomenon is that it's not simply about basketball this is really about human behavior and i think that

00:03:05.420 we are all familiar with this feeling of the hot hand those times when we're on a roll and nothing can

00:03:12.340 stop us and what i have found is that if we take advantage of those times they can kind of elevate

00:03:18.180 our careers and maybe even change our entire lives and where else do we see this the hot hand besides

00:03:23.700 basketball everywhere i you know honestly i know that sounds that that sounds a little bit ambitious

00:03:28.100 but what i have found is that like once you start looking for the hot hand you kind of bump into it

00:03:32.520 anywhere you look and so that's movie making that's like you know in your own careers it's writing

00:03:38.340 it's investing it's like it that this this power of streaks there's like a magic to it there's

00:03:43.980 something of a mystery to it too but like this is not limited to basketball or just sports has

00:03:49.400 wide-ranging impacts and it applies very very broadly yeah an example of streak showing up in

00:03:55.380 movies can be seen in the films of rob reiner i mean this guy made hit after hit after hit even with

00:04:00.960 movies that had previously been difficult to get made and that people didn't think would ever be a hit

00:04:05.280 that's right the first three movies that rob reiner made were spinal tap stand by me and the

00:04:11.580 sure thing and there was this incredible newspaper story after these three movies came out that sort

00:04:17.060 of distilled the essence of rob reiner's directing career to its essence which basically this newspaper

00:04:24.200 reporter said rob reiner's movies are hits not because everybody expected them to be hits but because

00:04:29.960 nobody expected them to be hits they were these delightful contradictions and so what happens

00:04:36.000 after he makes three movies that nobody wanted him to make but turned out to be either critically

00:04:41.380 successful or commercially successful what happens is that people think that he has the hot hand and

00:04:47.600 the perception of him has changed in hollywood and so he has this incredible exchange with a studio

00:04:53.880 executive around this time where the studio executive says we want to be in business with you like we

00:04:58.540 we will we will make any movie you want to make just name that movie and what rob reiner says is

00:05:03.480 trust me you don't want to make the movie i want to make and she says no really just like name the

00:05:07.600 movie tell us and he says no really you don't want to make this movie and finally she puts an end to

00:05:13.280 this abbott and costella routine they have going and she says just name the movie what movie do you

00:05:17.700 want to make and rob reiner says the movie i want to make is called the princess bride and the studio

00:05:24.600 executive says anything but the princess bride and for for many years the princess bride had been

00:05:30.620 like a riddle like haunted by a curse it was the great white whale of hollywood even though it was

00:05:36.320 written by william goldman who said it was like the best thing he ever wrote and this is the guy who

00:05:41.440 wrote butch cassidy and he wrote all the president's men even though like it was this incredibly rich

00:05:46.760 material robert redford had tried to make it and star in it and he couldn't true foe jewison all of

00:05:53.260 these brilliant directors before rob reiner had tried to make the princess bride and they all failed

00:05:58.060 what allowed rob reiner to make the princess bride even when nobody else wanted him to make it and

00:06:03.540 even when he came very close to not making it it was that hard was that he did have a hand right

00:06:09.400 there were these resources available to him he had some capital he had this runway and he was able to

00:06:15.720 use it on this movie that has become like this beloved cult classic i mean one of the most beloved

00:06:20.840 films we have now the cool thing about this movie is that it actually elevated him to an even higher

00:06:25.840 level because after the princess bride comes out he then rips off when harry met sally misery and a few

00:06:33.140 good men which is like the second hot hand period but it's very clear that like only because he did have

00:06:39.240 the hot hand was he able to leverage that to his advantage and like the world in some cases have never

00:06:45.860 been the same because like you know i think the princess bride there are these classic lines that

00:06:50.140 are just seared into our memory over time well and you've had there's researchers who study this

00:06:55.000 phenomenon of success that comes up in clusters they have any they have any idea why it happens is it

00:07:00.080 like talent is it circumstances is it just luck what's going on there i think it's actually a little

00:07:05.060 bit of all three i like to think of the hot hand is when like it's this collision of talent and

00:07:09.420 circumstance and a little bit of luck i think you put it very well what they what these researchers who

00:07:13.860 have studied creativity and workplace success have found is that our best work happens to come in

00:07:20.500 bunches like our creative hits they're clustered and this is in movie making but it's also in science

00:07:26.920 and it's art and it's it's anywhere these researchers believe where they would have bothered to look for

00:07:32.640 it so the people who wrote this paper a couple years ago they wanted to put these very objective

00:07:37.120 numbers to the very subjective issue of taste like what makes a movie good and how do we know if

00:07:43.720 that movie is good and so for movies they looked at imdb ratings for art they looked at auction prices

00:07:49.100 and for science they looked at google scholar citations these are not perfect metrics but they're about

00:07:54.480 the best that we have and what they found is that like if they knew what your best work is they would

00:07:59.520 probably be able to find your second and third best work because it's right around that best work

00:08:05.080 we have these hot hand periods in our careers and the really interesting thing about that is that

00:08:10.260 they tend to define our careers they're like what people remember about what we do at work so like

00:08:16.240 when we think about rob reiner we think about that hot hand period we think about the princess bride

00:08:22.180 going into misery and a few good men and when harry met sally and like the movies that made that

00:08:26.720 possible so the the reason they are so interested in this is because like they want to know like

00:08:31.140 how do we work and how do we maximize our productivity and clearly the hot hand plays some role in that

00:08:37.600 and have they found any ways to induce the hot hand or is it just a matter of just it just happens

00:08:42.120 i think it just happens which is which is sort of the elusive and the frustrating and like this like

00:08:47.440 devilishly entertaining thing about it i actually asked i figured i was like you know i who can i ask

00:08:52.920 about this who has felt hot before that i could ask like if they if they have any way to predict

00:08:57.700 what's coming and so i thought that the greatest shooter in the history of basketball week would be a

00:09:01.640 good person so i asked steph curry about this and i said like do you know when you are about to get hot

00:09:06.520 because we all like watching steph curry get hot is like i think it's the most thrilling thing in

00:09:11.420 sports and what he said which i think is really interesting is that he doesn't know when he's

00:09:15.760 going to get hot he doesn't know where he's going to get hot or why or how he's going to get hot

00:09:21.180 but once he does get hot he has to embrace it and i think that's a cool way of thinking about it

00:09:26.740 like once you do get hot once you realize you are in that moment the only thing you could do is embrace

00:09:31.760 it and as you say too curry is a good example of how a hot hand occurs from a meeting of

00:09:36.680 of talent and circumstance and the special energy that emerges out of that to me like sometimes

00:09:42.420 circumstance bends your way and so like if you're steph curry and you come along when the nba has

00:09:47.900 never put such a premium on three pointers and people who can shoot from outside like that circumstance

00:09:53.720 that he wouldn't have had in the 1970s and 1980s right like he came along at the perfect time

00:09:59.600 and he had this one game that elevated his career and nothing was ever the same like not his life

00:10:04.820 not the fate of the golden state warriors not the future of the entire nba but there are also people

00:10:09.540 who live at the wrong time and aren't able to capitalize on that streak now something else

00:10:15.100 changes clearly which is that like we have this burst of confidence something changes within us and

00:10:21.540 we're able to feel that momentum and and our own behavior changes sometimes that's good and

00:10:27.760 sometimes that's bad but like you know you think about it in terms of basketball we have these heat

00:10:31.980 check moments where we feel like we have the freedom to do things that we wouldn't ordinarily

00:10:38.280 do and so in basketball that means like pulling up from 30 feet and taking a shot with a hand in our

00:10:43.640 face for rob reiner it meant making the princess bride but like clearly something changes and and so

00:10:49.640 sometimes it's like talent taking advantage sometimes it's circumstance sometimes it's just like pure dumb

00:10:55.380 luck like sometimes like you just need things to to happen that you wouldn't expect to happen and

00:11:01.060 probably have never happened at any other time but if they do happen as to as steph curry says like

00:11:06.320 you have to embrace it so some other things you looked at about the psychology of what makes streaks

00:11:12.000 so appealing is you went to i think a classic video game of a lot of people's childhoods i know it

00:11:17.420 was mine nba jam yeah so i remember i saw the title of this book the hot hand he's like he better talk

00:11:22.920 about nba jam you know talk about it right away warming up he's on fire it's like what what can

00:11:28.180 that game teach us about the psychology of streaks well clearly that they're powerful so the thing

00:11:33.680 about that game is that it was made by this brilliant video game designer named mark tramell

00:11:38.160 and when mark tramell was growing up he loved three things he loved basketball and he loved video games

00:11:44.460 and what he really loved was fire he was actually a bit of a pyromaniac and he would combine those

00:11:50.080 three childhood loves into the biggest hit of his career and so when i grew up playing nba jam when

00:11:56.180 steph curry grew up playing nba jam when probably you grew up playing nba jam the game was everywhere

00:12:01.780 it was ubiquitous right what i did not realize was that like that wasn't just me or you or steph curry

00:12:07.660 it was everybody like everybody played nba jam it was one of the most lucrative successful games

00:12:13.860 ever made it made a billion dollars and quarters not a million like a billion with a b in less than

00:12:19.920 one year it was this monster hit and so when i started thinking about why when i asked mark tramell

00:12:26.160 why like what made nba jam so so powerful like why did we always want to play this game

00:12:32.820 clearly like there are any number of theories it's it was a fun game to play basketball was fun even

00:12:39.740 though it had nothing to do with basketball it was a basketball game that like was modeled on a sci-fi

00:12:44.620 game based on like a post-apocalyptic society it was not like any other basketball game or sports game

00:12:49.400 but what i think is that like it was it was magical to hear those three words he's heating up and then

00:12:55.760 those next three words he's on fire there was something alluring about that superpower of the hot

00:13:01.620 hand and you always wanted to get to that mode where you do three things and then a fourth thing

00:13:07.240 happens what i think is that mark tramell kind of single-handedly brainwashed a generation of 0.59

00:13:13.420 impressionable young minds into believing in this concept of the hot hand because until i read all

00:13:18.660 this literature about the hot hand it never even occurred to me that there might not be a thing

00:13:23.500 called the hot hand because honestly like i played nba jam of course there's a thing called the hot hand

00:13:28.460 and yeah that's the thing i mean what i think the hot hand in nba jam teaches you being on fire is that

00:13:33.880 it's really addictive like you'll just keep going so you can get back in it because like once you're

00:13:38.280 there like every shot you make for like the next minute or two it's going to go in i think addictive

00:13:43.300 is like a perfect way to do it and you and not only addictive means like you want to keep doing it

00:13:47.700 right like you want to keep feeding quarters into that machine to keep playing nba jam to try to get to

00:13:53.340 that mode and like this was purposeful mark tramell in every game he has made since then over the last

00:13:58.420 like 25 30 years he has tried to bake some sort of hot hand mode into that game because he knows

00:14:04.960 it's addicting and he knows that it makes people want to keep playing his games so i think people

00:14:10.860 have maybe experienced the hot hand themselves like i'm not a basketball player but i've had that

00:14:14.480 moment where i've been played some like pickup ball where every ball i put up seems to go in

00:14:18.800 steph curry has has experienced it we've probably seen steph curry when we everyone's seen steph curry do

00:14:24.060 that but then you talk about in the 80s there's a group of academics saying yeah hot hand it's

00:14:29.580 actually illusions let's talk about that research yeah this was it was it was this classic paper that

00:14:34.900 was written by tom gilovich bob valone and the great amos tversky who is just one of the brightest minds of

00:14:41.980 his generation and what they did was they looked for the hot hand in basketball because they had a sense

00:14:48.980 that it was simply going to be a case of seeing patterns in randomness where they don't exist and

00:14:54.720 their theory was that what we call the hot hand is actually just a way of rationalizing what we think

00:15:02.660 of as patterns and so what they were able to do was secure the best data that was available at the time

00:15:09.140 and it came from this official scorekeeper of the philadelphia 76ers a guy named harvey pollack who

00:15:15.440 was way ahead of his time he was nicknamed super stat because he was like one of the only people in

00:15:20.060 sports paying attention to statistics back then and they looked at the chronology of shots the order

00:15:26.480 in which they were taken and what they were trying to find was like are you more likely to make your

00:15:31.840 next shot after making two or three shots in a row now they asked basketball players this they asked

00:15:37.200 professional players they asked players at their schools almost all of them to a man said of course

00:15:43.780 there's such a thing as the hot hand and it's important to feed the hot hand when someone has

00:15:47.200 made a couple shots in a row you want to get them the ball and this is an example of like changing

00:15:52.060 behavior it's exactly what psychologists and economists study however once they looked at the

00:15:56.760 data this play-by-play and the order of shots in which they were taken they found there's there was

00:16:01.160 really no evidence to support that shift in behavior you were actually not any more likely to make your

00:16:06.700 next shot when you were on fire it was sort of a cognitive illusion and that made for this like

00:16:11.760 really delicious contrarian counterintuitive paper that they published and has since become like part

00:16:19.340 of the canon of behavioral economics it's one of the most famous papers in the history of academic

00:16:24.580 psychology and you know the the fascinating thing about it is that like even after it was published

00:16:29.760 people just wouldn't believe it they they took it to a reporter told the former boston celtics coach

00:16:36.280 red hourback about this paper once and he just sort of sneered and discussed and said like so these guys

00:16:41.120 make a paper like i couldn't care less like anyone who has been in basketball and seen the hot hand

00:16:46.480 and felt the hot hand just like would could not wrap their minds around the fact that it actually

00:16:51.760 might not be real and that paper held up for like 35 years and that's changed a bit in recent years now

00:16:58.120 even though there is there's been some evidence to the contrary that has come along recently like i i have

00:17:03.760 to say i still find that paper so admirable because just the contrarian nature of it this the way that

00:17:10.220 they were able to look at something and see something that nobody else had seen is just so

00:17:14.620 cool to me and i think that they're probably right about what they found like we still do see patterns

00:17:21.020 and randomness for one thing but also the hot hand is not like this exaggerated fireball of our

00:17:27.180 imagination from playing nba jam like that is not real life and so they were clearly onto something

00:17:33.000 whether or not there's no such thing as the hot hand i think is like an open question now and i think

00:17:37.800 that we have reason to think that like there is such a thing as a hot hand when circumstance allows

00:17:42.740 for it we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show

00:17:48.460 what so yeah i think the paper does it raises the point that humans beings have the tendency to find

00:17:53.440 patterns where patterns don't exist so example of this during world war ii when britain was getting

00:17:58.180 bombed like they thought there was a pattern to the german bombing when in fact it was just random

00:18:02.780 and then you also highlight how music is shuffled that like our tendency to find patterns can actually

00:18:09.800 mess up the way or it skews the way we think of like when we hit apple shuffle or spotify shuffle like

00:18:17.400 we we think there's a pattern going on when there's actually not a pattern that's right we make

00:18:21.960 playlists and we ask apple and spotify to shuffle them and yet sometimes we think that those shuffle

00:18:29.280 buttons are broken because we think that this random music is not actually random this was a

00:18:34.480 problem actually that both spotify and apple had to solve not too long ago because we would hear the

00:18:40.720 same song twice in a row on a playlist or we hear the same artist twice in a row on a playlist when there

00:18:46.700 are 10 15 20 artists and we were convinced that something was wrong not only something was wrong with

00:18:52.280 like the the algorithm but like that there was almost something corrupt happening like like the record

00:18:57.640 labels were paying spotify to play certain artists more than others that's not what was happening

00:19:02.920 it's just that we see patterns and we remember when we hear two songs by like beyonce in a row even if

00:19:10.440 there are you know lots of other artists on that playlist and so what spotify and apple had to do was

00:19:15.880 actually tweak their code and change their algorithms and it was a bit absurd but what they did was they took

00:19:21.960 playlists and if there are 10 artists on that playlist they would evenly disperse those artists

00:19:27.700 over the course of the playlist to guarantee that you wouldn't hear the same song or the same artist

00:19:33.140 twice in a row and like no less than steve jobs got on stage at an apple keynote about 15 years ago

00:19:38.920 and he explained like their thinking behind all this and it was so absurd that he like he couldn't even

00:19:44.460 help but laugh at the situation because when you think about it what they actually did was they made it

00:19:49.600 less random to feel more random like that's nuts and it's because we have a really hard time

00:19:57.060 wrapping our minds around randomness and so spotify and apple didn't stick to their guns and say like

00:20:03.260 well this is purely random and you have to get used to it they actually just gave their users what we

00:20:07.580 want and what we want is to not think about pure randomness so believing in the hot hand let's just say

00:20:13.380 let's say the we're not even gonna say the hot hand exists it may or may not but believing the hot hand

00:20:18.020 and say basketball the stakes aren't that high it's a game but what would happen if someone believed

00:20:22.680 the hot hand and say like if they were a farmer what would be the consequences of that yeah it's

00:20:27.580 the same thing as like investing in the market and if if if you are a farmer i actually took a trip to

00:20:32.720 a farm on the border of minnesota and north dakota not too long ago to meet with a fifth generation

00:20:39.220 sugar beet farmer named nick hagan and i wanted to know like do you believe in the hot hand and more

00:20:45.140 more important do you behave as if you believe in the hot hand and what nick said is like

00:20:49.840 yeah i believe in the hot hand like i've played sports i watch basketball i've seen the hot hand

00:20:54.160 for myself but i can't believe in the hot hand when i am farming because if you are a farmer and you look

00:21:00.860 at what happened last year or the year before and you invest your resources accordingly you're

00:21:07.200 essentially betting the farm and if you're wrong you go broke because there's a difference in farming

00:21:12.420 than there is in basketball and in farming like the way that nick says is that farming is defense

00:21:18.420 which is a really interesting way to think about it like when steph curry is shooting he's playing

00:21:22.760 offense he's in control he has agency over his own situation nick doesn't like nick's success and his

00:21:30.220 business are based on things that are like pretty much random like the weather the weather can determine

00:21:35.040 whether or not you have a good year or a bad year and so when i think of the hot hand i have to

00:21:40.660 remind myself that what the crucial distinction here is is control when we have control we feel

00:21:47.460 that we can have the hot hand when we recognize that we don't have control we kind of know we're at

00:21:53.440 the mercy of chance and believing in the hot hand can be dangerous it can be costly it can backfire

00:21:58.580 and it can burn us a little bit so there are plenty of industries farming is a good one investing

00:22:03.560 your money is actually another really good one where you sort of have to recognize

00:22:07.340 when you can and when you can't have the hot hand and and what your environment allows and whether

00:22:12.860 you are in an industry that encourages skilled performance or random performance so another

00:22:19.520 people would call a fallacy these psychologists who say the hot hand doesn't exist another fallacy

00:22:23.840 it's sort of the opposite of the hot hand is the gambler's fallacy what does that look like and

00:22:28.600 how does the gambler's fallacy show up in daily life you know it's funny because i like to think of

00:22:32.640 the gambler's fallacy through basketball as well so in basketball you make three shots in a row everybody

00:22:37.660 in the arena thinks you're making a fourth shot that's the hot hand in gambling it's when you walk

00:22:42.240 into a casino you walk over to a roulette wheel and you see the wheel land on red three times in a row

00:22:47.920 what research has shown is that most people actually bet on black the fourth time now these are really 0.58

00:22:54.580 interesting scenarios because they're essentially the same three things happen what do we do for the

00:22:59.320 fourth and when we think we're in control we have the hot hand when we recognize that we're not

00:23:04.720 we bet accordingly one is the hot hand one is the gambler's fallacy and the gambler's fallacy has

00:23:11.260 huge impacts on our decision making as much as the hot hand i mean it's it's a similar idea it's

00:23:17.980 whether or not we are betting on the streak to continue or the streak to end and so i mean where does

00:23:23.960 that i mean i'm trying to think of like an example besides gambling where people would make they say

00:23:28.520 something happens and they do the opposite because they saw a streak so one good example when you

00:23:33.060 think about people who make decisions people in authority positions like there there was one paper

00:23:38.520 that looked at the gambler's fallacy in a few of those industries one was loan officers one was

00:23:43.360 baseball umpires baseball umpires like if you if you call two close strikes in a row you are much less

00:23:49.440 likely to call a close pitch a third strike the next time even if it actually is a strike like what

00:23:55.380 it's it's all because like you're you're you're trying to even out the probability in your own

00:24:00.220 mind the one i write about in the book is asylum judges this is kind of crushing and it's a little

00:24:05.540 bit depressing but if you are a refugee in search of asylum your application is not simply judged on

00:24:12.920 your merits they are based on like lots of other things including when your case is heard so asylum

00:24:19.620 judges are much less likely to grant asylum if they have just granted asylum two or three times in a row

00:24:25.360 now a baseball umpire doing that might be trivial but an asylum judge essentially has someone else's

00:24:31.300 life in their hands and because they are trying to even out the streak because they have all of this

00:24:38.380 power and and they they don't want to encourage a hot hand they're trying to stop it and they're

00:24:43.180 trying to get to a point in their mind where they they're sort of they sort of embody this regression

00:24:47.700 to the mean like refugees regardless of the merits of their case suffer from that which which i find

00:24:53.920 really demoralizing and it sort of shows the human consequence of this idea of the hot hand like this

00:25:00.160 is not just about basketball or even behavior like there are huge effects that people can suffer from

00:25:06.280 this beyond like making one shot in basketball all right so that paper written in 86 sort of became an

00:25:11.980 article of faith that the hot hand didn't exist at least amongst academics they said it didn't exist

00:25:16.180 it's just everything's random it just appears like there's a streak going on but then these two

00:25:20.840 harvard students had a hunch that the previous studies that this hot hand paper was based off

00:25:26.260 were flawed and that the hot hand could actually exist so tell us about these guys and what led them

00:25:31.920 to believe that the original hot hand paper was flawed yeah not just not like harvard students not

00:25:37.520 like you know grad students or phd students or professors i mean undergrads like kids in their

00:25:42.380 college dorm they they actually looked at the hot hand as part of an independent study these econ

00:25:47.380 majors a couple years ago and and what they wanted to know was like does today's data bear out that

00:25:53.440 result from 1985 like the data we have now it was just unavailable to the researchers in the 80s in their

00:26:00.500 nerdiest wonkiest wildest dreams and what these undergrads were able to do was they were able to um to

00:26:07.520 to control for for what happens when somebody gets hot now think about when someone gets hot like

00:26:12.680 it warps the behavior of everybody around them in basketball if you're the shooter you want to

00:26:18.940 shoot more you are taking crazier shots longer shots riskier shots your teammates are passing you

00:26:24.060 the ball your coaches are calling plays for you the defense is adjusting as well they're sending

00:26:28.440 double teams at you they are making it their mission to make sure that you do not shoot because

00:26:32.780 you are hot right now for a very long time until these kids came along we weren't able to control for

00:26:39.220 those shifts right like there was no way to know if someone was taking a layup or a three-pointer or

00:26:45.460 a long three-pointer or a trickier three-pointer it was just a shot was a shot and that was it but they

00:26:52.400 were able to get to negotiate access to this trove of data that came from these high-resolution

00:26:57.260 tracking cameras in every nba arena starting about 10 years ago and because they were able to look at

00:27:03.100 the distance of the defender and the distance of the shot they were actually able to compute

00:27:08.420 the probability of that shot going in and once they controlled for that probability they were able

00:27:14.580 to show that when you do get hot you're actually slightly more likely to make your next shot because

00:27:21.780 if you control for the difficulty of a shot it had always been mass the hot hand like it had been

00:27:26.380 disguised because we take chances we take riskier shots and longer shots and crazier shots and when those

00:27:34.200 shots go in like they are actually a sign and they had they had been all along we just had no way of

00:27:40.960 knowing it that the hot hand actually might be a real thing and and and this example was curious to

00:27:46.600 me and and was really appealing because it showed that like this data that we have now this better

00:27:51.960 data not just bigger data but better data and more granular data it can tell us things that we'd

00:27:57.340 always suspected but like could never prove for sure because we didn't have the data the data wasn't good

00:28:02.940 enough yet it hadn't caught up to our own minds and that's kind of what happened with the hot hand

00:28:08.860 like the data that was used in that 1985 paper was the best data available at the time but times have

00:28:15.860 changed and so has the data and the data now tells us something that we all thought to be true we just

00:28:21.260 couldn't say for sure because the data had never been good enough and about the same time these two

00:28:26.480 harvard undergrads were doing this this study this research there are also two economists who also

00:28:31.940 started arguing that the hot hand fallacy studies that travisky did miss something really important

00:28:36.980 when they made their conclusion the hot hand didn't exist so what did travisky miss that these guys saw

00:28:41.860 you know honestly it i i have learned that trying to explain this bias that they found yeah i had to read

00:28:49.360 it like five times so it's like to get it i know this sounds like a cop-out but like just read the

00:28:55.320 book just like just look at this table because you kind of have to wrap your mind around it in a very

00:29:00.620 strange way and and and actually that's important because like this was a very very subtle statistical

00:29:06.800 bias that some of the world's brightest statisticians had missed for 35 years like nobody had seen this and

00:29:14.080 so for me to talk about it for me to describe exactly what they found is tricky but essentially

00:29:19.340 what they found was that for 35 years the fact that you shot the same when you were hot was always

00:29:26.800 taken as bulletproof evidence against the hot hand like you were not more likely you were the same

00:29:32.360 amount but what these two young american economists in europe found was this bias that shows that if you

00:29:38.900 are a 50 percent shooter and you shoot 50 percent when you feel hot that actually is evidence for

00:29:44.500 the hot hand and we have been looking at this very old problem in the wrong way for like almost four

00:29:51.460 decades and the math is right it's been rubber stamped it's been published by like the top economic

00:29:56.780 journal all of these brilliant mathematicians and statisticians who have read the paper say it's right

00:30:02.060 it's super trippy it's really mind-boggling but it it lent this new chapter to this saga of the

00:30:08.260 hot hand that it actually kind of flipped it on its head in a little bit like it showed that we're

00:30:12.940 still thinking about this old problem and new ways of thinking about that problem can lead us to new

00:30:18.780 conclusions about it so i i actually this is sort of like the the the new entry into this field of

00:30:25.260 hot hand studies this growing scientific literature and i think what it did was ensure that this debate is

00:30:31.300 not dying anytime soon like there are going to be more papers about this because like it it's a topic

00:30:37.660 it's a idea it's a phenomenon that kind of drives us a little bit crazy and we just want to keep

00:30:42.340 thinking about it well in amos travisky's partner uh daniel kahneman you know they wrote thinking fast

00:30:47.500 and slow like he was at a presentation where these guys are making their argument that they made a

00:30:52.080 statistical error and daniel kahneman was like yeah you guys are right yeah exactly i mean you know i i was

00:30:56.740 there that day and kahneman says like you know it's unfortunate they made that error but i think their point

00:31:00.820 still stands that we see patterns where they don't exist in randomness and we invent causes to

00:31:06.340 explain them and i think that's right and i think the cool thing about the hot hand is that we have

00:31:09.900 been talking about this idea for like 35 40 years and there are very smart people on both sides of this

00:31:16.360 debate and like i think part of the fun of it is just toying around with this idea for yourself and

00:31:21.640 seeing where you land thinking about like where the hot hand is possible where it's not possible what

00:31:27.840 circumstance allow for it and what circumstances actively punish belief in the hot hand like it's it's

00:31:34.760 it's that's sort of the beauty of this world of ideas is that we can each come to our own

00:31:39.140 conclusions we can do the work we can read the papers and we can figure out what we think for

00:31:43.160 ourselves it'd be interesting to see the future of hot hand research if they're going to start doing

00:31:47.080 things like measuring you know the physiology of you know players who experience the hot hand no i think

00:31:51.200 so too i think i would love to see like people strap electrodes to our brains and try to figure out

00:31:56.240 exactly what is happening neurologically inside of us when we do feel hot i think we're we're able to do

00:32:02.320 that sort of research now and it would be kind of fascinating to see it done on this like a in a

00:32:07.180 huge population sample and i think people would be interested in it because people have been

00:32:11.600 interested in this subject for 35 years at this point i mean so what do you think the the like

00:32:16.220 practical takeaways like someone's listening to this podcast right now they're like okay this is

00:32:19.680 interesting hot hand maybe exists like how how can they apply this to their lives well i think it's

00:32:24.360 important to think about like when we can take those own heat checks in our lives right like

00:32:29.000 recognizing when we do have the hot hand and taking advantage of them because they can change

00:32:33.900 a lot like i have felt it in my own career there have been a few times not many but a few when like

00:32:39.860 writing and reporting stories at the wall street journal when i do feel hot and something has

00:32:44.260 changed and i try to remind myself in those moments like this is the time to really hunker down and do

00:32:48.920 everything you can because the other thing we know about the hot hand is that it does not last

00:32:53.140 forever it goes away and that's like the most frustrating thing about it because

00:32:57.260 we know that like it's not forever and so we have to take advantage of it while we can now and there

00:33:02.860 are a bunch of other like behavioral quirks and changes that we can make and so like just thinking

00:33:08.360 about where there is a hot hand or or where you might be prone to seeing patterns or or where like

00:33:14.520 there might be examples of the gambler's fallacy and like how to adjust for them in in the book i tell

00:33:20.100 the story of one of these yale economists who has studied the gambler's fallacy and he realized that

00:33:26.180 he was subject to that very same bias that he wrote about and so now when he grades papers and assigns

00:33:32.920 his teaching assistants um to to look at exams what he does is that he he recognizes that sometimes if

00:33:40.200 you read one paper that comes after like two a plus papers that paper is not going to read all that

00:33:46.160 well even though it might be perfectly fine it might be an a it might be an a minus but when it comes

00:33:50.620 after those two a pluses it might read like a b or a b minus and so what he does is he takes all of his

00:33:56.040 papers and he splits them in two and he shuffles them and he lets his teaching assistants grade them

00:34:02.200 twice in different orders to try to reduce that bias as much as possible he will then average those two

00:34:09.420 scores and weight them accordingly and like that's not perfect but it's a whole lot better than what his

00:34:15.500 system was then so i think there are all types of ways of of factoring these biases into our own

00:34:20.720 minds and trying to adjust for them and and and seeing where they lead us and if you're not

00:34:25.640 experiencing the hot hand you just got to keep pumping the quarters in to the machine until you

00:34:29.260 start warming up again that's it's that's actually the secret of the book just keep playing nba jam

00:34:33.800 regardless of what you do and i think things will work out right well ben this has been a great

00:34:37.860 conversation where can people go to learn more about the book in your work well they can find the book

00:34:41.340 anywhere books are sold and they can read me in the wall street journal and they can find my best

00:34:45.360 stories and more about the book at bzcohen.com and i am bzcohen on every social media platform that

00:34:53.400 we're all trying to avoid these days well ben cohen thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:34:57.140 thanks so much my guest today was ben cohen he is the author of the book the hot hand the mystery

00:35:02.440 and science of streaks it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more

00:35:06.340 information about his work at his website bzcohen.com also check out our show notes at

00:35:10.720 aom.is slash hot hand where you can find links to resources and we can delve deeper into this topic

00:35:15.080 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

00:35:25.840 art of manliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles we've

00:35:29.620 written over the years about pretty much anything you can think of and if you'd like to enjoy ad

00:35:32.640 free episodes of the aom podcast you can do so on stitcher premium head over to stitcherpremium.com

00:35:37.060 sign up use code manliness at checkout to get a free month trial once you're signed up

00:35:40.660 download the stitcher app on android or ios you can start enjoying ad free episodes of the aom podcast

00:35:44.980 and if you haven't done so already i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on apple

00:35:48.380 podcast or stitcher it helps out a lot if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing

00:35:52.360 the show with a friend or family member who you think we get something out of it as always thank

00:35:56.140 you for the continued support and until next time this is brett mckay reminding you not only

00:35:59.240 listen to the aom podcast but put what you've heard into action

00:36:02.200 you

The Art of Manliness - March 25, 2020

#596： The Mystery, Science, and Life-Changing Power of the Hot Hand

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript