A Strength Model of Probability Judgments for Tournaments

Fans of the National Basketball Association (NBA) assigned probability judgments to the outcomes of upcoming NBA games, and rated the strength of each team involved. The probability judgments obtained from these "expert" subjects exhibited high intersubject agreement and also corresponded closely to the eventual game outcomes. A simple model that associates a single strength value with each team accurately accounted for the probability judgments and their relationship to the ratings of team strength. The results show that, in this domain at least, probability judgments can be derived from direct assessments of strength which make no reference to chance or uncertainty.