The hot hand in basketball: An examination of the impact of the hot hand, expertise, and mindfulness on expert basketball players and coaches decisions
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Authors
Ingels, John Spencer
Issue Date
2013
Type
Thesis
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
The hot hand concept is a belief that if a player has a series of several successful actions he or she is more likely to be successful in the subsequent action: they are hot. Statistically the hot hand has been shown to be a fallacy. However, player and coach perspectives show that psychological momentum or the hot hand is believed to be extremely important to the success of a player and team. In this study basketball players and coaches watched one half of a college basketball game and predicted the outcome of select jump shots taken. While the players and coaches were no more accurate than a random model at predicting success, the pattern of predictions did indicate a belief in the hot hand. Additionally, it was found that expertise, as measured by number of years in basketball, was correlated with overall prediction accuracy.