Ja verujem u fenomen "vruće ruke" - teoriju da igrač u košarci, ili nekom drugom sportu, može da uđe u seriju pogodaka jer je tog dana izuzetno fokusiran ili raspoložen. U bihevioralnoj ekonomiji uzima se zdravo za gotovo da među sportistima postoji "zabluda vruće ruke" (hot-hand fallacy). Kad se podaci o šutevima i ubačajima analiziraju statistički na velikom uzorku, nalaz je da je vruća ruka samo sportski mit. Mene to nije ubedilo i svoje neslaganje sam izrazio u radu objavljenom pre par godina u Kyklosu (ako je nedostupno onda radna verzija ovde), ovako:
To exemplify the rise of
one, seemingly exact and scientific, thinking pattern in social science at the
expense of the other less rigorous and more mundane one, let us consider the
debate around the so-called “hot hand” phenomenon. Basketball players,
coaches and experts traditionally believe that the player may be in a special
“hot hand” condition, in which his shooting ability and performance is suddenly
elevated. After a player makes several shots in a row, players, coaches and
expert commentators tend to believe that his likelihood of making the next shot
is higher. After examining the shooting percentages of several players in
a large number of games, Gilovich, Tversky and Vallone (1985) famously showed
that the “hot hand” is a myth. Shooting statistics do not in fact show any
non-random increase in performance; instead, shooting percentages of players
tend to revert to the mean. The study has since been universally lauded as an
example of the superiority of the hard data approach to conventional wisdom and
intuition.
However, a closer
inspection of the nature of the data that Gilovich, Vallone and Tversky (1985)
use reveals a great degree of reductionism behind them. Shooting attempts are
treated as a uniformed category, while they are in reality very diverse. Not
all attempts are of equal difficulty, and there seems to be a systematic
tendency towards a higher difficulty of the next shots. A player that has made
one or two shots is almost always encouraged to shoot more, on his own and by
his teammates and coaches. While the first few shots were made from easier
positions, each following shot will tend to be attempted from more difficult
positions. The opponent’s defense pays more attention to the player who has
been making shots, which further increases pressure on the shooter. The
shooting average of the hot hand shooter will tend to revert to the mean, not
because the hot hand does not exist but because it does. The variable that
adjusts is not the number of baskets but the audacity to shoot more on the side
of the shooter and the intensity of defense on the side of the opponent.
Because of the complexity
of the game and the loss of information that happens when basketball game
shooting is placed outside its context, abstracted and reduced to data points,
basketball players’ intuition and common knowledge of this matter may well be
superior to the hard data. In fact, the “hot hand” experience is very
compatible with the psychological concept of “flow,” later proposed by
Csikszentmihalyi (1990). An expert faced with a high level of challenge may
experience a state of intense and focused concentration, related to increased
performance.
Professionals in many
areas, including sports players, have been known to experience such states. As
a former professional European and NBAbasketball player observes, in such
states “the basket seems to you like a bathtub; no, like a swimming pool,
and you just cannot miss it.” It is, therefore, far from obvious that the
apparently sound empirical study should overrule the opinions of
experienced practitioners. Even though they may well be subject to
group-think and other biases, basketball professionals have the intimate,
and often probably tacit knowledge of the specificities of this issue.
On the other hand, once we attempt to rationally consider the issue, we
tend to categorize and reduce the complex events into measurable data,
thus overlooking that some potentially relevant knowledge is lost in the
process.
Igrač kojeg citiram u ovom isečku je Saša Đorđević, koji je fenomen najčuvenije iskusio upravo protiv Litvanije u evropskom finalu pre 20 godina -- a publikacija iz koje sam citat izvukao je ništa drugo nego Kurir! Ne znam da li je Đorđević ranije bio citiran u međunarodnim naučnim radovima ali nešto mi govori da je Kuriru ovo sigurno bio jedini put!
