from Amazon
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Self-policing sportsmen
Glove-slap Tom:
The paper formally tests a cognitive explanation for the hypothesis frequently put forth by Rasheed Wallace that says that a player will often miss free throws after getting a foul that he does not deserve. The explanation that Haynes and Gilovich point to is a phenomenon known as inequity aversion, the idea that people prefer to avoid unfairness and injustice (even if sometimes it is not in their best interest to do so)…
...the authors calculated free throw percentage for the first shot after these incorrect calls, which turned out to be a whoppingly low 53.2%, substantially lower than the league average for the season on first-shot free throws, 73.6% (the league average was 77.8% for second-shot free throws). This suggests inequity aversion--players felt significantly less comfortable making a free throw after receiving an unjust foul call.