ABSTRACT
Uninterrupted sequences of recent results are known as a streaks, from the Old English word striks, meaning strokes (for example, of pens or swords). A popular notion in sports is that winning or losing streaks affect ensuing contests. Going into a match-up on a five-game hot streak is preferable to coming off five straight defeats, for example. The idea is that the rise in SELF-CONFIDENCE and SELF-ESTEEM that accompanies a succession of good results affects the positive MOMENTUM of an individual or entire team. Yet, in contrast to accepted wisdom, Roger Vergin found that the statistical chances of winning are not dependent on the results of recent contests, and so the streak has no causal connection with future outcomes. Vergin’s findings tend to undermine athletes’ own commonsense ideas
about the impetus precipitated by winning runs and the self-perpetuating qualities of a SLUMP: ‘‘The probability of winning a game is independent of the results of recent games’’—though it should be pointed out that much of the research on MOMENTUM focuses on athletes’ PERCEPTION of the impetus rather than its objective effects.
