Blog Post #2

Despite telling myself that I would not blog or write about football during this course, I am diving head first into it, in regards to my superstitious behavior. This past weekend, the Lords traveled to Springfield, Ohio to take on the #11 ranked team in the country, Wittenberg. In reflection of this fall, Saturday night, I am now conscious of some psychological concepts that directly affect me in the sport that I have played and loved for years. The grand topic of this blog is…my socks. Each summer I buy a pair or two of sleek, expensive athletic socks to sport during games for the upcoming season. These socks get swapped out depending on how well I play on a game-to-game basis, and whether I stay injury-free or not. So, I wore my NBA-Jordan socks for our game against Oberlin this season. During this game I broke 2 separate Kenyon records en route to a near personal best performance. Of course, the next game I wore the same socks expecting them to produce the same result. Then comes the Wittenberg game, where I completed fewer passes than any game in my career, suffered a mild concussion, and possibly damaged cartilage in an already weathered left knee. This is a classic, and admittedly basic illusion of control that I displayed. I define illusion of control as believing that chance events are subject to my own control. The chance that the socks I wear during games affects the likelihood that I do not get injured is 0%, or close to it. This plays directly into the parallel concept of illusory correlation; my perception of a relationship between the socks that I wear during games and how well I play/how healthy I stay. Despite a clear example of my personal superstition not working to my advantage, and the reality of psychological research holding true, I will continue my sock-switching habits, and the NBA-Jordan socks will not be on my feet as we take on Ohio Wesleyan next weekend. This is despite the fact that I know that extreme statistics, on either end of the spectrum, tend to return to the average statistic. With this is mind, despite having a poor game last weekend with my ‘lucky’ socks on, according to the idea of regressing toward the mean (my season average in this case), I can still expect to have a 3,000 yard season regardless of my footwear habits (God-willing).