Sandbox: Difference between revisions

From ChanceWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
Line 4: Line 4:




<center>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/forwiki/cn45-2.gif </center>
<center>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/forwiki/CN45-2.gif </center>


   
   

Revision as of 16:10, 21 March 2009

Losing at the half, winning in the end

The popular New York Times column Freakonomics had an interesting piece on basketball recently. The academic article When Losing Leads to Winning it quotes by Jonah Berger and Devin Pope of the University of Pennsylvania is even more interesting. The following graph illustrates their main point:


http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/forwiki/CN45-2.gif


That is, based on about 6500 NCAA basketball games, although being behind at the half is usually more likely to produce a loss, a one-point deficit at the half has a (surprisingly) higher probability of a win (51.3%) than being tied at the half (50%). They postulate that losing can lead to winning and cite a concept of “loss aversion.”

Discussion

1. Why is the above graph symmetrical about zero (game tied at the half)?

2. The following graph is not in the article itself but is courtesy of the authors:


This graph, unlike the previous one, is not symmetrical about zero. However, regarding “When Losing Leads to Winning,” how is this graph similar to the previous one regarding the concept of “loss aversion”? What new ingredient makes it different?

3. The following punch line is from the New York Times: “It’s an intriguing finding: being behind by a little yields the greatest possible effort. And while these researchers measure these effects on the basketball court, or on pounding keyboards [other investigations done by Berger and Pope in their article], their implications for the rest of our lives are even more intriguing. Want your workers to work harder? Tell them that they are running a close second in the race for promotion.” Google Niccolò Machiavelli and see what he wrote on the subject of inspiring underlings to perform better.

Submitted by Paul Alper