May the Intentional Candidate Win: The Effect of Global Performance Information on Intentionality Attributions and Managerial Hot-Hand Predictions

Abstract

In organizational contexts, managers often have to judge and predict others' performance. Previous research has consistently shown that when predicting someone's performance, people expect that a local sequence of successful outcomes will continue—the hot-hand. The present work proposes that hot-hand predictions occur when local streaks are dispositionally attributed to the agents' intentionality and explores how the inclusion of global performance success rates may guide intentionality inferences and moderate predictions of success after a streak. Three studies, using within- and between-subjects' designs, manipulate agent's global success rate and show that after a local streak, intentionality attributions and predictions of success are lower when success rates are low (vs. high or unknown); intentionality attributions mediate the effect of success rate on predictions; hot-hand predictions are lower for low success rate agents (vs. high or unknown) as they are not perceived as more responsible for streaky than for alternated performances.