Psych at Work

It's always odd to me when the media decides to get on board and report a hot streak, particularly in college sports (except football). It seems like a college athlete has to be one or two away from breaking a national record before it even earns a place on the ESPN crawl... but if you don't want to wait or are just curious about the streaks out there, I highly recommend Dr. Alan Reifman's blog: "The Hot Hand in Sports."

Most of you in psychology and/or statistics are probably familiar with the hot hand phenomena, but it's basically the idea of streaks or streakiness in sports - the idea that two events or trials are somehow not independent (e.g., the first and second free-throw shots a player makes). So far, there is at best, almost no evidence to suggest that there are statistically significant streaks, but we're humans and we like to look for them anyways...

I like this blog a lot because it's written by a legitimately knowledgeable source (and has even been cited in scholarly/peer-reviewed journals) and has links to every other source on the subject you might ever want!

And so, with the season's end break in Garrett Wittels's hitting streak at Florida International University, I bring you the latest entry from Dr. Reifman's site, which reports on streaks in progress (and paused, ended, etc.). Enjoy!