Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts · chapter 1 · id thinking-in-bets-c1-01-resulting----judging-decision-
“"Resulting" -- judging decision quality by outcome quality -- is a pervasive cognitive error. Pete Carroll's Super Bowl XLIX pass call was actually a good decision despite the interception.”
TRUE, BUTconfidence: high⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending
Receipts
Baron & Hershey (1988), 'Outcome bias in decision evaluation,' Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyDOI registry: valid
Subjects rated the quality of a decision as higher when the outcome was favorable, even when outcome information was irrelevant to decision quality.
Gauriot & Page (2019), 'Understanding outcome bias,' Games and Economic BehaviorDOI registry: valid
Football coaches and journalists rated players' whole-match performance substantially better when a lucky goal occurred versus an unlucky miss, confirming outcome bias in expert populations.
FiveThirtyEight (Benjamin Morris), statistical analysis of Super Bowl XLIXsource alive
Carroll's decision cost Seattle at most 0.3 percentage points in win probability. The interception rate from the 1-yard line was approximately 2%. Belichick's decision not to call timeout cost New England 2.1 percentage points.
Slate, 'Why Pete Carroll's Decision to Pass Wasn't the Worst Play Call Ever'source alive
Win probability simulations showed Seattle had 85% win probability running vs 77% passing. Running was still better, but passing was not the catastrophe the public made it out to be.
This claim is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us. Corrections are loud here.