This article outlines errors that may occur when people predict event outcomes. The focus is on how our tendency to perceive independent events as connected, consistent with tenets of Gestalt Psychology, biases our expectations. Two well-documented phenomena that occur when people make predictions after a run of a particular outcomethe "gambler's fallacy" and the "hot hand"-are used to illustrate the issue, and research is presented that highlights the importance of misperceptions of independence. Novel implications and hypotheses are presented that are generated from use of this gestalt approach.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.