Call It a Comeback: Why Performance Increases When We’re Losing
If you were a New York Knicks fan in the mid 1990′s, you surely remember a certain 1995 playoff game in which Reggie Miller scored 8 points in under 9 seconds (two back-to-back three pointers, and two foul shots) to rally the Indiana Pacers to a last-second win over the stunned Knicks. It was a truly sad moment for New Yorkers, made all the worse when the Knicks lost the series in seven games. For whatever reason, some players seem to play better from behind. Reggie Miller certainly did.
A recent study by Jonah Berger of Wharton and Devin Pope of the University of Chicago highlights how being slightly behind is often an advantage. The authors devote a large part of their research to studying 18,000 NBA and 45,000 college basketball games. They also conducted an experiment in which people played competitive games and were given feedback halfway through. Read More »
FREAK-Shots: Free Internet, Unless You’d Rather Pay for It
A reader named Clark Case encountered this wi-fi login window at a Doubletree hotel in Orlando. Paging Chris Anderson? Eh … probably not. While there might be some reasonable explanation — is the 24-hour connection ad-supported maybe? — my guess is it’s a simple error. Read More »
More Research on Why Nice Guys Lose
A couple months ago, we wrote about a study by researchers from Notre Dame and Cornell that showed how “agreeableness” negatively affects monetary earnings, particularly for men. Translation: it pays to be a jerk. Well, not exactly, but it apparently doesn’t pay to be overly nice.
Now, a recent paper from a host of researchers (from Stanford, Northwestern and Carnegie Mellon) fleshes out this notion by showing why nice guys who watch out for others generally fail to become leaders. The study looks at how contributing to the public good (i.e. taking care of outsiders, and even others in a group setting) influences a person’s status on two critical dimensions of leadership: prestige and dominance. People who shared resources with their group were seen as prestigious, while those who protected their resources and even sought to deprive members of another group were seen as dominant. Read More »
The “Being Swindled” Demand Curve Shifts Left
A recent headline in The Onion reads, “Boardwalk Con Men Hit Hard By Sharp Decrease in Chumps.” Even though it’s a fake story, we can still have some fun with the economic principles it illustrates. According to the piece, the weak economy has reduced people’s willingness to be swindled— the demand for being swindled has shifted left. It’s gotten tough for swindlers, with one complaining, “In a stagnant economy like this, I can’t get no one interested in the same old grift.”
Not surprisingly, in this competitive industry (presumably entry/exit into/out of swindling is fairly easy), it is likely that some swindlers will leave the industry. The story notes that, unless the economy improves, many will, “…pull up stakes and take it down to Florida, where the chumps are a dime a dozen.”
That exit should restore normal profits for the swindlers who remain on the boardwalk.
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 