In 1999, the Oakland Athletics ranked 11th (out of 14 teams) in the American League in payroll, but 5th in wins. In 2000, the A's ranked 12th in payroll and 2nd in wins. They replicated this in 2001. In 2002, they ranked 12th in payroll again—and 1st in wins. Welcome to Episode 7 of 60-Second Psychology: The Psychology of Moneyball & Cognitive Bias.

What is Moneyball about and how was psychology utilized to change baseball thinking? Moneyball, is a 2003 book by Michael Lewis, which recounts the story of Billy Beane and his management of the Oakland Athletics beginning in 1999. At its core, Moneyball is about the cognitive biases that permeated baseball decision making, and how the A's beat those biases to consistently field a successful team of players that other teams overlooked and undervalued. And did so on a shoestring budget.

As the A's General Manager, Beane focused on signing young players that other teams simply did not want -- players that were largely ignored by the veteran scouts because they "had something wrong with them". In other words, players who didn't match up with the scouts’ mental prototype (or stereotype) of a successful baseball player. Beane threw out old, subjective thinking and embraced objective statistics to measure successes and predict future success.

Cognitive biases affect many decision making processes - in Moneyball, Beane challenged the subjective thinking of older baseball scouts to play his own game. One that was played with the bare minimum in cognitive bias allowed. Have you ever seen or experienced this phenomenon before? Let me know in the comments below. Don't forget to like and subscribe for future 60-Second Psychology videos, and I’ll see you next time. Enjoy!

Aloha,

Dr. Jen