Sticking with what (barely) worked
By: Lars Lefgren, Brennan Platt, Joseph Price
Contributors: Platt, Brennan; Price, Joseph; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 17477; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 17477.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "Outcome bias occurs when an evaluator considers ex-post outcomes when judging whether a choice was correct, ex-ante.  We formalize this cognitive bias in a simple model of distorted Bayesian updating.  We then examine strategy changes made by professional football coaches.  We find they are more likely to revise their strategy after a loss than a win - even for narrow losses, which are uninformative about future success.  This increased revision following a loss occurs even when a loss was expected, and the offensive strategy is revised even when failure is attributable to the defense.  These results are consistent with our model's predictions"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 12/15/2011.

Includes bibliographical references.

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