How to ‘cheat’ at sport without really ‘cheating’ – part 3: Grunting

Our previous Improbable article in this series examined the use of placebos – we now look at grunting. Though several sports tolerate (or even encourage) grunting as part of normal play, some have complained that it can be used as a deliberate and unfair distraction of one’s opponent(s). With regard to tennis for example, see: […]

How to ‘cheat’ at sport without really ‘cheating’ – part 1: Praying

“Ajax, through Athena’s spite, slipped upon some offal that was lying there from the cattle which Achilles had slaughtered in honor of Patroklos, and his mouth and nostrils were all filled with cow dung.” The account above is from The Iliad – in which Homer relates how Odysseus prays to the goddess Athena to request […]

Too tired to cheat?

Have you ever been presented with an opportunity to cheat, but, paradoxically, just didn’t have the energy to bother? You may have been suffering from ‘Ego-Depletion’. According to professors Kai Chi (Sam) Yam, Xiao-Ping Chen, and Scott J. Reynolds, conducting investigations at the Management and Organization department at the Foster School of Business, University of […]