We utilize play-by-play data from the National Football League to examine coaching decisions on fourth down and how sensitive they are to information on situational success and their competitive environment. Prior fourth down successes and failures within a game influence coaches in a way consistent with the notion that recent information is more salient to these coaches when making decisions and a belief in in-game momentum. Coaches are more sensitive to fourth down failures than successes, and our findings suggest this sensitivity to prior failures leads to suboptimal fourth down decisions later in the game. This finding is generally driven by the behavior of coaches with a background in coaching offense, suggesting the availability heuristic is particularly potent for managers who are more involved and, perhaps, more accountable for the details of fourth down plays. We suspect these patterns are prevalent in a wide range of managerial contexts.

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根据观察到的表现更新信念：来自 NFL 主教练的证据

我们利用美国国家橄榄球联盟的逐场比赛数据来检查第四回合的教练决策，以及他们对情境成功信息和竞争环境的敏感程度。比赛中之前的第四场比赛的成功和失败对教练的影响与这样的观念是一致的，即在做出决策和相信比赛动力时，最近的信息对这些教练来说更为重要。教练对第四次失败比成功更敏感，我们的研究结果表明，这种对之前失败的敏感性会导致比赛后期第四次失败的决策不理想。这一发现通常是由具有教练进攻背景的教练的行为驱动的，这表明可用性启发式对于更多参与、也许对第四次进攻细节更负责的经理来说特别有效。我们怀疑这些模式在广泛的管理环境中普遍存在。