Recency Bias

When reflecting on anything, we're subjected to recency bias. "What have you done for me lately?"

Stay aware of cognitive biases and mental models. Someone comes in and takes half a dozen serves including an ace. That's a tiny sample size. There's a statistical principle about "if nothing goes wrong, is everything all right?" The formula is 3/n. With 100 serves and no errors, that's a p value of 0.03 which is strongly statistically positive. 3/6 is 0.5. Means little.

MVB followed up Wednesday's match against Winchester with a much better one Friday at Wakefield. Some can be attributed to practice and corrections and some likely occurs from mean reversion. 

There's plenty of time for us to discover who the 2024 MVB team is. And even then, time changes perception. Vincent Van Gogh sold ONE painting from about 900 painted during his lifetime. Now a Van Gogh is priceless. 

Be aware of the many factors that affect perception.

AI take on some important cognitive biases:

Absolutely! Cognitive biases can significantly influence how we perceive and make decisions, often without us even realizing it. Here are six prominent cognitive biases that are particularly relevant in sports and coaching contexts:

1. Confirmation Bias: This is the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. For instance, a coach might focus on the positive aspects of a player's performance while ignoring any areas needing improvement because it aligns with their belief that the player is already excellent. 

2. Overconfidence Bias: This bias involves having excessive confidence in one’s own abilities or judgments. In sports, this might manifest as an athlete or coach overestimating their skills or the likelihood of success, leading to under-preparation or poor decision-making.

3. Anchoring Bias: This is when individuals rely too heavily on the first piece of information they encounter (the “anchor”) when making decisions. For example, if a coach initially assesses a player as highly skilled, they might continue to rate the player's performance favorably even if subsequent evidence suggests otherwise.

4. Availability Heuristic: This bias involves relying on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a situation or making a decision. In sports, if a coach or player recently witnessed a major success or failure, they might disproportionately weigh that recent event when making future plans or decisions.

5. Bandwagon Effect: This is the tendency to align with the opinions or behaviors of the majority. In sports, this could mean a coach or team adopting strategies or training methods simply because they are popular or widely accepted, rather than based on evidence or effectiveness.

6. Sunk Cost Fallacy: This bias refers to the inclination to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made, regardless of whether the future benefits justify the additional investment. For example, if a coach has invested a lot of time in a particular training method that isn’t yielding results, they might continue to use it just because of the previous investment, rather than switching to a more effective approach.

Lagniappe. Part of Coach Scott Celli's success has been identifying need areas to retool strategy and lineups.

You're probably working on a hype video. Here's a random one.