Reversion To The Mean

Vernal, Utah

December 6, 2022

This fellow has some interesting videos -- mostly about science and math.

I was drawn to this one because Jack and I joke about mean reversion when discussing UVa basketball. When the Wahoos shot 50 percent from three-point land for a game, are they (or we since we are all the sixth man) going to shoot threes poorly the next game (i.e., revert to the mean) (although I do like the term "regress" to the mean -- implies slipping backward.

I had not thought about "regression to the mean" in terms of motivating people. I never responded well to folks yelling at me to do a better job. Likewise I never felt it was effective for me to stress someone out by yelling at them. My logic was while we do need butterflies to perform our best, we usually perform at out best when we are relaxed and if possible, "in the flow."

And then, of course, there is how we talk to ourselves. When I step back and pause, I realize I am incredibly hard on myself. Nothing is good enough and boy, when I mess up, I really let myself have it. It is as though I have two different circuits in my brain -- one for dealing with others and one for dealing with myself.

When day a friend said to me, "What would you say to a friend?" It was a jarring observation -- right up there is "Don't believe everything that you think." Try as I might to keep both those statements in the forefront of my mind, I forget both of them for days, even weeks, on end. Another form of "regressing to the mean!"