The Importance Of Rebound-Effect In Sports

In almost any major sport, from the collegiate level to the professional level, the question is always asked, is it rigged? I am a huge sports fan and I hear this question all too often. Every year in the playoffs of the NFL (National Football League), and the NBA (National Basketball Association) there’s major talk about how the outcomes of games are staged. The only big sports league that has come out as staged for entertainment is the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). The proof is in research. These major sports leagues can’t rig game-winning plays, from a game-winning three-pointer, a touchdown pass, or even a home run. For example, in basketball, any shot, requires a certain angle of arc, spin, and distance to go in the hoop (Zhijun).
Out of everyone, is it plausible to believe there has not been a single whistle-blower? According to the “rebound-effect”, it’s highly unlikely. A good explanation of the rebound-effect is this quote: “The idea is that a person trying to ditch a thought will look around for something to displace it — first at the ceiling fan, then a candle, then a remote control. Soon the mind forms a latent bond between the unwanted thought and the surrounding items, so that everything now reminds the person of what he is trying to forget, exacerbating the original frustration”(Jaffe). Having the thought of a secret in the back of the mind would cause the person to try to avoid the topic in their mind; only causing it to come back over and over(Jaffe). Another piece of psychological research shows that revealing a secret, which can be verbal or even on a piece of paper, draws a correlation to both physical and mental health improvements (Jaffe). With that being said, there would be more motivation to tell than there would be to keep the whole thing secret. This relates to sports because of the large group people that have been in and out of the sports industry, and how not one athlete, commentator, coach, or team owner has come out with proof that the sports industry is rigged. A counter-argument that I have heard is how nobody has had a true motive to spill the
For example, Ayesha Curry (Steph Curry’s wife) said in a tweet: “I’ve lost all respect sorry this is absolutely rigged for money… Or ratings in not sure which. I won’t be silent. Just saw it live sry.”(Isola) Ayesha said this immediately after her husband fouled out of game 6 of the 2016 NBA Finals. Ayesha even apologized by saying “Tweeted in the heat of the moment because the call was uncalled for”(Isola). Ayesha also later tweeted how she was emotional at the time of the tweet due to her father being racial profiled (Isola). A Harvard University essay on emotion and decision making says that they directly correlate (Lerner et al.). In this essay, Lerner et al. describes this type of emotion as “incidental emotion”. Incidental emotion could be best defined as emotions that “pervasively carry over from one situation to the next, affecting decisions that should, from a normative perspective, be unrelated to that emotion. “(Lerner et al.) This research shows how Ayesha Curry and many other believers in the “sports are rigged” group are victims of incidental emotion. “Don’t make a permanent decision from your temporary emotion”-