To those who discredit me, I say you're full of shit

The age old adage tells us that first impressions are absolutely imperative to someone’s view of something or someone. Though credible, I’m assuming everybody discredited the kindergarten-style information because we all thought first impressions could be changed, or maybe that’s just me. To answer the question of how important first impressions are, in 1980, Anderson, Lepper, and Ross set out to ask what happens after those impressions are formed. They came up with the idea of belief perseverance, or the idea that after we make those first impressions and conjure up a set of beliefs about something or someone, if someone discredits our idea and proves us wrong, we refuse to believe them. Even simpler, the idea is that we’re always right despite hard evidence and nobody can tell us otherwise. For example, this “hot hand effect,” or being “on” during a basketball (or any other sports) game was completely discredited by Thomas Gilovich in 1991 when he said statistics did not support the idea of being “on” or “off,” because a player has an equally likely chance of making a shot no matter what. I want to ask this guy if he’s ever played a sport in his life because as a life-long athlete, I REFUSE to believe this evidence. Statistics cannot tell me that they know better than me how I get in a groove during a game. I played softball for about 16 years and I know my own ability better than some pencil-pushing statistician. When I’m up to the plate, and I’ve had an awesome game, you bet your ass I’m getting on base in one way or another and if I’m having a bad game, the pitcher could walk me and I would still be having some trouble finding first. I have believed this idea of momentum all my life and won’t stand for having someone who probably has no idea what a field looks like from an athlete’s perspective tell me I’m wrong, statistics or not. Why? Because stats, as great as they are at telling us to not gamble all our money away, can never describe a feeling or an energy. They just can’t. So, screw you, Gilovich, I will believe whatever I please even in the face of your evidence. Boom.

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Anderson, C. A., Lepper, M. R., & Ross, L. (1980). Perseverance of social theories: The role of

explanation in the persistence of discredited information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(6), 1037-1049.

Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn't so. (pp. 9-21). New York, NY: A Division of

            Simon and Schuster Inc.