Analysis of Psychological Momentum in Intercollegiate Tennis

The hot hand and the cold hand in professional golf

“…Adler (1981) serves as the stem work of the literature. Later studies by Silva et al (1988), Vallerand et al (1988), and Cornelius et al (1997) extend the early models and offer important new insights. 4 Finally, Taylor and Demick (1994) offer a model which offers far more detail about the psychological and physiological processes that may create connections between past performances and future performances.…”

“…Many factors impact how a player reacts to recent performances, so different players can react to the same situation in different ways. Some players may have no reaction to recent performances, while for others success can produce a loss of momentum rather than a gain, increasing the likelihood of failure, a process that Silva et al (1988) term positive inhibition. Likewise, failure can result in a gain in momentum rather than a loss, increasing the likelihood of success, a process termed negative facilitation.…”

Finally, Evidence for a Momentum Effect in the NBA

“…In some early studies, Iso-Ahola and Mobily (1980) examine a racquetball tournament and Silva et al (1988) examine college tennis matches. Both find that winning the first game (in racquetball) or set (in tennis) leads to a greater probability of winning the next game or set.…”

The hot hand fallacy re-examined: new evidence from the English Premier League

“…The phenomenon of negative momentum is best explained by Cornelius et al (1997) and Silva et al (1988) with reference to the theoretical constructs of positive inhibition and negative facilitation. 3 The empirical evidence presented in our study supports the positive inhibition construct by suggesting there is a shift in performance attributes away from optimality following victory in the EPL, but does not support the negative facilitation construct as poor performance does not tend to be systematically related with future success.…”