Gambler’s fallacy is the belief that a random process is somehow self-correcting. The word, somehow, is important here to note as you know that it is a random process and has no brain to self-correct! Check this out:
“The mean IQ of children in a city is 100. You take a sample of 50 children for a study. If the first child measures an IQ of 150, what is the expected average IQ of the group?”
Tversky and Kahneman, Psycological Bulletin, 1971
The answer is (150 + 49 x 100) / 50 = 101, althoght most people thought it would still be 100.
Another famous example is the hot hand in basketball. It is a belief from the spectators that a person’s success for a basket depends on previous success. But a lot of studies have not found any evidence for such dependencies.
