In many instances humans look to outside sources in an effort to explain a relationship between two variables.  Frequently, the relationship one perceives has no connection and in reality is just simply an overestimation of how often an event occurred.  Events such as these are called illusory correlations.   I feel that this phenomenon is especially true in the world of sports.

For example, my dad and I over the past summer went golfing multiple times.  On every single one of our golf outings together he insisted on wearing his sun glasses.  He wore his glasses no matter the sun conditions and time of day: clear, overcast, cloudy, midday, late afternoon.

Neither of us are experts at golf and therefore the results of who would win could be described as random and unpredictable.   However, one day I was absolutely destroying my dad through about 6 or 7 holes out of our usual 9 hole half-rounds that we would play.  He was playing so terribly he had to find something to blame his failures on. So, he decided to take off his sun glasses for the last few holes.

Miraculously, my dad came back to defeat me, staging an incredible comeback.  In my estimation, the comeback was attributed to my collapse over the last few holes and not any improvement in the play of my dad.  On the other hand, my dad believed that the ONLY reason he came back was because of him taking off his sun glasses and thus leading to an improvement in his play.  He could not see past the idea that him taking off his sunglasses somehow was the missing piece in him becoming the next Tiger Woods.

I insisted to him that the comeback and his sun glasses clearly had no relationship at all, citing that he had defeated me multiple times while wearing his sun glasses.   My argument was to no avail as my dad was adamant on the illusory correlation that taking off one’s sun glasses can turn them into a world class golf star.