People in a rhythm get better at whatever skill they’re using.
This intuitive idea was assumed enough that the catchy phrase “the hot hand” traveled from sports to countless other disciplines. Then research seemed to overturn its reality. Decades later, the research proved our instincts out.
That journey and research on streaks makes the bulk of the 2020 book The Hot Hand by sports journalist Ben Cohen. It may not have needed to be a full-length book, but I enjoyed it and appreciated the research he referenced, though much of it was familiar.
More broadly, the author argues our sense of randomness is all wrong. For example, if truly random, a playlist should alternate artists, a roulette wheel can’t have a streak and an immigration judge expects to have an even split of cases accepted and rejected. This confuses the law of small numbers and the law of big ones. It’s also why we are so prone to fall for the hot hand fallacy — and the related gamblers fallacy.
For future reference I share my notes from his book below.
Continue reading The Hot Hand is real (with the research to prove it)