Analysing your IQ
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AKA: "Streak Belief"
The belief that a person who has experienced success has a greater chance of further success (in random domains).
Your brain has bugs. Hot Hand Fallacy is one of them. Understanding this error pattern helps you catch it before it costs you.
You think the basketball player who made three shots is "hot" and more likely to make the next one, beyond base rate.
Hot Hand Fallacy isn't just an abstract concept—it affects real decisions about money, relationships, career, and health. The cost of ignoring it compounds over time.
This error is driven by Narrative coherence: we want patterns in randomness. Success streaks feel meaningful..
This bias exists because human brains evolved for survival, not accuracy. Narrative coherence: we want patterns in randomness. Success streaks feel meaningful. served our ancestors well. In modern contexts, it often misfires.
In investing: Hot Hand Fallacy leads to holding losing positions too long or selling winners too early.
In relationships: This bias causes people to interpret ambiguous signals in ways that confirm existing beliefs about partners.
In work: Hot Hand Fallacy makes it harder to update strategies when market conditions change.
In health: People ignore symptoms that contradict their self-image as "healthy" or "young."
Experiments on Hot Hand Fallacy often use controlled conditions that make the bias obvious to observers—yet participants still fall for it. This demonstrates how powerful the effect is.
In domains with genuine skill, streaks may be real. In random domains, treat each event independently.
Seek disconfirming evidence: Actively look for data that challenges your current belief.
Use decision journals: Write down predictions before outcomes are known, then review accuracy.
Consult diverse perspectives: People with different backgrounds spot different biases.
Implement decision rules: Pre-commit to criteria before emotionally charged situations arise.
Time-box decisions: Revisit important conclusions after a cooling-off period.
Some brains are more susceptible to this than others. Test your Intelligence to find out.
The belief that a person who has experienced success has a greater chance of further success (in random domains).
The alternate name "Streak Belief" captures the intuitive essence of the bias. Hot Hand Fallacy is the formal psychological term, while "Streak Belief" describes what it feels like in practice.
In domains with genuine skill, streaks may be real. In random domains, treat each event independently.
The underlying mechanism is narrative coherence: we want patterns in randomness. success streaks feel meaningful.. Human brains evolved heuristics for speed and survival, not accuracy in modern contexts.
Yes. Intelligence doesn't provide immunity—sometimes it makes the bias worse because smart people are better at rationalizing. Awareness and structured decision processes are more protective than raw IQ.
You think the basketball player who made three shots is "hot" and more likely to make the next one, beyond base rate.