End of Note.
When one thinks about that phrase, Fantasy Football, it's hard to deny how apt of a name it is, and I'll tell you why.
Bear with me first.
I recently caught the end of Act Two of a This American Life show (a journalism radio show on NPR, airs on Saturdays). This story talked about gambling and why pathological gamblers stay pathological (at least, that's what I surmised, I only listened to the last 4-5 minutes of the show).
In the show, behavioral psychologist Mark Dixon illustrates the research he's been working on for the past few years in his lab at Southern Illinois. Dixon concentrates on what's called the "near-miss effect" in which gamblers almost win at a game of Blackjack or roulette. To study this, Dixon has constructed his lab to mimic a casino floor, complete with card tables, slot machines, roulette wheels -- the works.
"[My lab] looks like a casino," Dixon tells This American Life's Sara Koenig, "... Maybe not a five-star casino, but maybe a two-star casino on the interstate somewhere."
While studying these gamblers, Dixon has found that the subjects like these near misses (Bar...Bar...Cherry...dang, so close!) more than a straight up loss, because they came up just short of the jackpot or 21 or whatever. In reality, a loss is a loss, a win is a win, especially when it comes to gambling. It's like basic programming ("if: Bar-Bar-Bar, then: Jackpot, baby."); a true or false question on a test; a mathematical proposition -- it either is or it isn't. So when gamblers think they've almost won and come to enjoy those outcomes more than losses, that's very maladaptive and problematic.
In the show, Dixon goes on to explain a study he conducted in 2006 that fleshes out the neurological aspects of this near-miss effect in pathological gamblers. While interesting, it's outside the scope of this blog. Here's the link to the transcript if you want to check it out, though: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/466/transcript.
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| Been there. |
Anyway, this near-miss effect reminded me of something I had learned last semester in Social Psychology, about being almost right. Before we get there, let's just consider a general case: A person might pose a hypothesis regarding an arbitrary and somewhat variable subject she has a fair amount of knowledge on (e.g. sports, economics). This knowledge boosts her confidence about the expected outcome (high self-esteem also solidifies confidence). If her hypothesis proves true, her confidence is furthered, self-esteem boosted, and she might say something like "I knew it!" (hindsight/self-serving bias). But when her hypothesis turns out to be false, she may lose confidence and, in order to save face, (externally) attribute the outcome to some outside factor that she didn't account for (e.g. environmental conditions, human error).
Now, let's say our gal, a golfer, claims: "Tiger will win the British Open this year." But when Tiger finishes in a tie for second, she might say, "Well, he almost won." She was wrong, dead wrong, however since Tiger finished so close to first, she can say that she was very close -- oh, so very close -- to being right, which is much more preferable to admitting she was wrong. This "near-miss" allows her to maintain her reputation as knowledgeable in front of her peers who heard her make the initial claim, and she goes on thinking herself somewhat of a golf expert.
After listening to the show, my mind naturally drifted to how this "near-miss effect" prevails within the world of fantasy football. I thought of all the times I had acted exactly like our golfer friend did, how many times I had justified my intuition by noting how "close" I had come to being right. (The example that comes most readily to mind is in 2010, the week after Aaron Rodgers suffered a concussion in a loss against the Lions. Flynn had to start against the dominant Pats on a Sunday Night game. I boldly claimed the Pack would win that game, despite Rodg being out. Friends and family snorted contemptuously at such a statement, but it turns out the Pack only lost by 4 -- 31-27 or something like that. I was able to confront said snorters and justify my "erroneous" claim to them because the Pack had come so close to winning).
As I'm sure you have deduced by now, this type of "almost right" mentality is a big contributor (in my opinion) to the popularity of fantasy football. People read the magazines. They listen to the analysts. They watch ESPN and NFL Network shows. They scout. They research. They find the sleepers, the hidden talents, the breakouts, and they exercise their knowledge come draft day and the regular season.
But when their players do poorly, when their sleepers never wake up, when their stars fizzle out, do they say "Man, was I wrong to start him!"?
No way, bro.
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| Always been my excuse. |
I can admit I've done that practically each week of the fantasy football season. Consider: The Cowboys are at home against the Jags, the worst run D in the league. DeMarco Murray practically comes alive on your computer screen saying "Start me, bro, you gotta start me!" This is the matchup you've been waiting for. He's projected 22 points. You start him. He gains 72 total yards. What do you say? "Dallas's line played like crap." "Dallas threw way too much." "Dallas was too predictable." "The Jags played out of their minds."
Essentially, you're saying "It wasn't my fault."
Or consider this: you've got a gut feeling about Torrey Smith this week. "He's gonna have a huge game, I know it." The matchup is favorable (the Browns). You start him over Larry Fitzgerald. Torrey has 3 catches for 38 yards, but Flacco just overthrew him on what would have been a 53 yard touchdown, the ball grazed his fingertips (Fitz gets two TD's in his game against the Rams, by the way). You lose your matchup that week by 7 points. Whose fault is it? "Eff! If Flacco had thrown a better ball I toats would have won!"
Translation: "I was so close to being right about my hunch on Smith." Yet you weren't right. You were wrong, broseph. But you go on thinking your hunches are viable, that you have a sage-like intuition because you came so close to being right that one time.
This type of mentality is ripe with psychological phenomena. The most beautiful attribute of the game of football, the attribute that has kept me watching and playing it for so many years, is how unpredictable and vagarious it is. The lowliest of teams can rise up and topple the most challenging foe. A 6th round draft pick can become a Hall of Famer (Tom Brady). The unlikeliest of players can become the most historic of heroes (David Tyree). The idea that one can become an expert on this game and be able to consistently predict outcomes, successes, and failures, is a fallacy. But many believe they can (it seems so easy), and many of those people engage in fantasy football.
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| God I hope this doesn't happen to Foster. Ever. |
In a display of uncharacteristic ambition I'm going to try and tackle the psychology of fantasy football in a series of posts. Counterfactual thinking, near-misses, internal and external attributions, self-serving bias, the fundamental attribution error, the psychology of the sleeper, how a first-time fantasy footballer manages his team compared to a veteran. I'm going to try and flesh out all these topics and more as they pertain to fantasy football, and hopefully some of it will open eyes and minds.
Though I'm sure the effects will be minimal.
Stay tuned for the first official post, the topic of which has yet to be determined (probably internal v. external attributions and the self-serving bias).
Ken and I will be working in collaboration on this blog. Assume most of the thoughts are his and I am just the humble scribe.
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