Sudden-Death Aversion: It's About More Than Football

Your favorite National Football League team is trailing 31-24 with 30 seconds remaining in the game.  The star quarterback throws a 35 yard touchdown to the tight end, and the crowd goes wild.  The score sits at 31-30.   The coach has a decision to make.  Your team can either kick the extra point to tie the game, or go for the two-point conversion and the victory.   If they tie the game, it goes to overtime.  What does almost every coach do in this situation?  They kick the extra point.  It's the safe strategy in the moment; after all, kicking the extra point has a higher chance of success than going for the two-point conversion. However, have you ever asked yourself: Does kicking the extra point give you the best chance of winning the game eventually? 

Source: Wikipedia

Scholars Jesse Walker , Jane Risen , Thomas Gilovich , and Richard Thaler have examined this decision-making situation.  They describe the typical coach's behavior as exhibiting "sudden death aversion."  Here's the crux of their argument:  

We argue that sudden-death aversion reflects a common bias that can lead to non-optimal decision making in a great many contexts, some far removed from the gridiron. When decision makers face a choice between a “fast” option that offers a greater chance of ultimate victory but also a non-trivial chance of immediate defeat, and a “slow” option with both a lower chance of winning and a lesser chance of immediate defeat, they often opt for the slow option because of their aversion to sudden death. In so doing, they lower their chances of ultimate success.

The researchers found that 89% of NFL coaches took the safe strategy of kicking the extra point to tie the game over a ten-year period.  However, those teams often did not end up winning the game in overtime.  In fact, the percentage that won the game eventually was lower than the average success rate of two-point conversions in the NFL.   These data suggest that sudden-death aversion ends up leading to a sub-optimal outcome. 

The scholars turned to the NBA to conduct further research.  Do teams go for the two-point shot to tie the game, or the three-point shot for the victory?   Coaches tend to prefer to tie the game, but again, that appears to be the sub-optimal outcome.  

The scholars have studied this phenomenon in other settings as well, and they discover a similar "sudden-death aversion" that shapes decision making.  Do business leaders face the same problem?  Surely, they do.  The researchers argue that managers experience "sudden-setback aversion" and thus take what appears to be the safer option in the here and now to avoid a loss in the moment, even if that risk-averse strategy is suboptimal in the long run.