The Action Bias

Commentary on the action bias at Cato@Liberty.

The action bias is the preference to do something instead of nothing, especially after a crisis of some sort. Often the action ends up being pointless and possibly hurtful. The most obvious would be the gun laws passed after high profile shootings. The murderers break all the laws anyway, and the new gun laws only make it harder for civilians to defend themselves legally.

The original article is in the Washington Post, and could be particularly illuminating for you soccer players:

Azar found that goalies had the best chance of stopping a kick when they remained in the center — partly because when they dived to one side, they left themselves with no chance of stopping a kick aimed at the other side or a kick aimed dead center. And even when they correctly guessed the direction of the kick, they still had only a 1-in-4 chance of stopping a goal.

Despite the clarity of the evidence, Azar found that goalies dived to one side or the other 93 percent of the time