![]() “We should perhaps take the predictions of experts assigned to a single team with a pinch of salt as they may not appreciate the bigger picture,” said Love. Collectively, they predicted an average of 8.93 wins for the 16-game season - significantly greater than the average number of wins possible. The experts were asked to predict the final record for the team they had been assigned that year to cover. Love and his colleagues examined data from a pre-season 2014 survey of 32 of ESPN’s football reporters. Sports reporters - so-called experts - appear to have biases similar to those of NFL fans. Unfortunately, the study does not mention the Minnesota Vikings. “By contrast, we see the largest optimism gap for lower-profile teams that receive little national media coverage, enabling fans and local media to construct their own optimistic narratives.” ![]() “It’s interesting that both fans and rivals of high-profile, successful teams are generally in agreement about their expected performance,” said Love. The gap was widest for the Cincinnati Bengals and the Arizona Cardinals, whose fans predicted an average of 6.6 more wins than did people who declared a dislike for these teams. This “optimism” gap between the predictions of fans and rivals was also narrow (about one game) for the Denver Broncos, the Seattle Seahawks and the Philadelphia Eagles. Both groups - those who liked and those who disliked the Patriots - were optimistic about the team doing well in 2015, but the fans were slightly more so, predicting, on average, one more victory. It was also, however, the one most disliked. The study found that the New England Patriots were the most-liked team among the fans surveyed. That meant the fans had collectively predicted a total of 307 victories for their favorite teams - 51 more than possible. The number of wins predicted by the fans for their favorite team averaged 9.59, compared to 6.10 wins for the team that they most disliked. The researchers averaged these predictions by individual teams and then across all teams. They were asked to predict how many games they believed both their favorite team and least favorite teams would win this season. Study detailsįor the study, Love and his colleagues surveyed 1,116 NFL fans (mean age: 34) last April. The NFL “is the perfect system to study optimism bias because it’s zero sum - one team winning means another team losing,” explains Brad Love, the study’s lead author and a psychologist at the University College London, in a released statement. That’s why the authors of the current study turned to NFL fans. (The fact that one person avoids cancer doesn’t mean that another will develop the disease.) So it’s difficult to establish with certainty whether people’s optimism about outcomes that affect them are biased or not. People who underestimate health risks, for example, may not seek medical care when the need actually arises.Īnd people who overestimate their personal chances at social mobility may vote against their own economic interests.Ĭonclusively demonstrating that optimism bias exists is a challenge, however, primarily because most studies do not use a system with zero-sum outcomes. But it can also have negative consequences. Optimism bias is believed to help inspire humans to continue persevering, even under difficult circumstances. the ability of people to move up economically by working hard and saving money. Americans, especially young people, conservatives and members of the upper class, also tend to overestimate social mobility in the U.S.
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