A Novel Approach to Investigating Basketball Experts' Perceptions of the Hot Hand

The hot hand and psychological momentum (PM) are Ai'o closely related concepts that propose that previous success increases the chances of future success (Jackson & Mosurski, 1997). Statistical evidence for the existence of the hot hand or PM is mixed (Bar-Eli, Avugos, & Raab, 2006; Bocskocsky, Ezekowitz, & Stein, 2014; Sun, 2004). However players', coaches', and fans 'perspectives show that PM or the hot hand is believed to be an extremely important aspect within sport (Gilovich, Tversky, & Vallone, 1985; Jones & Ham'ood, 2008). A key component of this phenomenon is the ability to predict future performance based on the appearance of momentum and this ability relies on human decision-making. The current study examined how the hot hand impacts human decision making by having collegiate level basketball players (N = 18) and coaches (N = 5) predict shot outcome while watching a taped college game. While the players and coaches were no more accurate than a random model at predicting shot outcome, they did outperform the random model when predicting shots taken by a hot shooter. The implications of basketball player and coaches relying on the hot hand when making decisions are discussed. Additionally, a positive correlation was seen between basketball expertise (number of years as player/coach) and prediction accuracy. This result and implications for future research to better understand how the hot hand is used to make decisions are discussed.