1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, 2 00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:10,760 Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here. Imagine your hours into a late 3 00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:13,159 Speaker 1: night poker match. Hold up in the basement of a 4 00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:16,400 Speaker 1: sketchy watering hole where tensions are rising. You know you 5 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:18,840 Speaker 1: should quit while you're ahead, but you just can't bring 6 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:21,439 Speaker 1: yourself to leave any possible winnings on the table. The 7 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:23,880 Speaker 1: streak has gone on so long it's like you can't lose, 8 00:00:24,520 --> 00:00:28,000 Speaker 1: except you do. One bad card deals you a killer blow. 9 00:00:28,200 --> 00:00:31,120 Speaker 1: The spell is broken and your hot hand is gone. 10 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:35,760 Speaker 1: Unfortunately it never existed in the first place. Researchers have 11 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:38,519 Speaker 1: taken great pains to prove that the hot hand bias 12 00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:42,839 Speaker 1: is exactly that a bias. It's humans innate predisposition that 13 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:46,320 Speaker 1: makes us believe we see patterns, including winning or losing 14 00:00:46,320 --> 00:00:50,919 Speaker 1: streaks where none exist, especially when preservation or gain are involved. 15 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:54,800 Speaker 1: Now we know that monkeys have the same superstitious bias too. 16 00:00:55,240 --> 00:00:58,320 Speaker 1: Oh and they really love to gamble. It seems we 17 00:00:58,440 --> 00:01:01,440 Speaker 1: species have more in common than us to the of 18 00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:05,160 Speaker 1: our DNA. During a study by researchers at Clarkston University 19 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,160 Speaker 1: and the University of Rochester, ess monkeys played a fast 20 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:11,399 Speaker 1: paced computer game with built in rewards. Correctly guess the 21 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:14,199 Speaker 1: next step in the pattern, get a treat. However, even 22 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:16,960 Speaker 1: when the sequence was random, the monkeys gambled like they 23 00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:19,360 Speaker 1: were on a winning streak, showing a false belief in 24 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:22,760 Speaker 1: their run of good luck. Despite being given multiple opportunities 25 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:25,360 Speaker 1: to rehearse a different scenario, the monkeys stuck to the 26 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:29,399 Speaker 1: patterns they perceived to be winning ones. Gambling monkeys hell 27 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,200 Speaker 1: bent on a hot hand is one thing. Figuring out 28 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:34,679 Speaker 1: why they share our pension for these patterns is another. 29 00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:37,800 Speaker 1: A researcher's point to the odds of finding food in 30 00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:40,600 Speaker 1: a monkey's natural habitat. If a monkey finds a plump 31 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:42,560 Speaker 1: beetle under tree bark once, it's a clue that he 32 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:45,880 Speaker 1: should check nearby trees too. If he finds another beetle nearby, 33 00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:49,040 Speaker 1: it reinforces a pattern that the monkey will probably repeat 34 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:51,440 Speaker 1: the next time he's hungry, even though he may never 35 00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:54,640 Speaker 1: find another beetle the next twenty times he looks. It 36 00:01:54,720 --> 00:01:58,120 Speaker 1: seems neither monkeys nor humans ever really make decisions that 37 00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:00,680 Speaker 1: are free from bias, and we don't even recognize that 38 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:03,240 Speaker 1: we're doing it. Take the process by which some humans 39 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:05,880 Speaker 1: decide to invest in a particular stock. A stock that 40 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:08,960 Speaker 1: rises one day is never guaranteed to rise the next, 41 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:11,560 Speaker 1: or ever again. Yet we believe that if a stock 42 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:14,000 Speaker 1: went up once, it will do it again, and so 43 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:17,880 Speaker 1: surely that will be the most logical investment. This belief 44 00:02:17,919 --> 00:02:20,440 Speaker 1: in winning and losing streaks may not be solely a 45 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:24,080 Speaker 1: product of life experiences, as was previously thought, Because we 46 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:27,280 Speaker 1: share the superstition with monkeys. Scientists think there may be 47 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:30,240 Speaker 1: a genetic component to it and hope that further research 48 00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:33,400 Speaker 1: could lead to new approaches to treating gambling addiction, insight 49 00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:42,000 Speaker 1: into decision making theory, and more. Today's episode was written 50 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:44,800 Speaker 1: by Laurie L. Dove and produced by Tristan McNeil. For 51 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 1: more on this and tons of other psychological topics, visit 52 00:02:47,639 --> 00:03:01,000 Speaker 1: our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.