The causal power of the last tag

September 13, 2007

For years I have wondered about the disproportionate influence of the final events in sporting contests. If a basketball player makes a shot in the final seconds to turn a loss into a win, the newspaper accounts will typically describe how that shot won the game. Similarly, if the shot misses, then the newspapers will likely explain the loss in terms of that missed shot. Despite all the other plays during the entire game, these final heroics/failures carry a major share of the explanatory power. That seems distorted.

One way to account for these last gasps is in terms of counterfactuals. Decision researchers have shown that we ascribe greater causal impact to events where it is easy to imagine the opposite, such as these last second shots. If we can’t easily imagine an alternative scenario then the event seems inevitable and therefore less consequential. We wouldn’t explain how Shaquille O’Neal affected the score because of his height. That’s just who he is. But if he blocks the desperation shot, we give him full credit for saving the game because he might not have done that.

Building on the notion of counterfactuals, perhaps it is much, much easier to imagine the opposite of a last-second shot precisely because it happened at the last second so it doesn’t influence anything afterwards. A missed shot in the first quarter might change the rhythm of the game, change the nature of the defense played by the other team, change the confidence of the player who made it. So if we try to imagine how the game might have proceeded had the player made the shot it gets very complicated. In contrast, the last-second shot stands alone as a conclusive event.

There may be other reasons for the undue influence of the last tag in sports, but these are at least some ideas to consider.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

About the Cynefin Company

The Cynefin Company (formerly known as Cognitive Edge) was founded in 2005 by Dave Snowden. We believe in praxis and focus on building methods, tools and capability that apply the wisdom from Complex Adaptive Systems theory and other scientific disciplines in social systems. We are the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world.
ABOUT USSUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

Cognitive Edge Ltd. & Cognitive Edge Pte. trading as The Cynefin Company and The Cynefin Centre.

© COPYRIGHT 2024

< Prev

Treat all journalists with extreme caution

I was pleased to see my cynicism about the Guardian "science correspondent" picked up by ...

More posts

Next >

Automated Partners

On Tuesday, September 11 I was the keynote speaker for a conference on Modeling and ...

More posts

linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram