Good decisions can have bad outcomes

As humans, we too often judge the quality of a decision based on the outcome, when many other factors (often luck) play into it.

The “Resulting Fallacy” is a case where we create too tight a relationship between the quality of the outcome and the quality of the decision.

Or as poker player Annie Duke says:

Don’t be so hard on yourself when things go badly and don’t be so proud of yourself when they go well.

We see this a lot in sports. Should the runner try to steal second? If they’re fast and going against a catcher that rarely throws people out, it’s likely a good decision — even if they get thrown out. In hindsight they shouldn’t have done it, but at the time it was the the right decision to make.

The Seahawks made a good decision to pass

At the end of Super Bowl XLIX, the Seattle Seahawks threw a late interception that cost them the game. If you’ve not seen the play before, here it is:

It’s widely considered to be a “horrible decision”, but was it really? To recap the situation:

• There were 26 seconds remaining
• The Seahawks had one timeout