Hot Hand Meta-Analysis Published

The January 2013 issue of the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise contains a meta-analysis of hot hand studies, conducted by Simcha Avugos, Jörn Köppen, Uwe Czienskowski, Markus Raab, and Michael Bar-Eli. The authors located 22 articles providing tests of the hot hand (i.e., success begets success, and failure begets failure) in a variety of sports. Because some articles included multiple studies, there were 56 effect sizes in all.

Results from each study were converted to a common correlational metric. The closer an effect size was to +1, the more supportive the study was of the hot hand (i.e., how an athlete performed on one trial is likely to be replicated on the next trial). Effect sizes close to -1, in contrast, convey the opposite of the hot hand (i.e., how an athlete performed on one trial is likely to be followed by an opposite result on the next trial). A zero effect-size doesn't support either trend.

The average effect size was .02, leading the authors to conclude that, "...we found no
solid evidence for either the existence of a general hot hand effect, or for any moderating variable that can explain the extent of a hot hand effect" (p. 26).