Heuristics as beliefs and as behaviors: The adaptiveness of the “hot hand”

• Published in: Cognitive psychology Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 295 - 331
• Main Author: Burns, Bruce D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.05.2004; Elsevier; Academic Press
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Adaptive thinking; Adjustment (to Environment); Athletics; Behavior; Beliefs; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive Psychology; Cues; Culture; Decision Making; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Heuristic; Heuristics; Hot hand; Humans; Markov Processes; Models, Psychological; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reasoning. Problem solving; Sequential information; Simulation; Social Behavior; Streaks; Thinking Skills; Streaks; Adaptive thinking; Sequential information; Hot hand; Decision making; Belief; Human; Sport; Computer simulation; Reasoning; Heuristic method; Cognition; Markov model; Basketball; Experimental study; Adaptation
• ISSN: 0010-0285; 1095-5623
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2003.07.003

Gigerenzer (2000) and Anderson (1990) analyzed reasoning by asking: what are the reasoner’s goals? This emphasizes the adaptiveness of behavior rather than whether a belief is normative. Belief in the “hot hand” in basketball suggests that players experiencing streaks should be given more shots, but this has been seen as a fallacy due to Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky (1985) failure to find dependencies between players’ shots. Based on their findings, I demonstrate by Markov modeling and simulation that streaks are valid allocation cues for deciding who to give shots to, because this behavior achieves the team goal of scoring more. Empirically I show that this adaptive heuristic is supported by the fallacious belief in dependency, more so as skill level increases. I extend the theoretical analysis to identify general conditions under which following streaks should be beneficial. Overall, this approach illustrates the advantages of analyzing reasoning in terms of adaptiveness.