from Hacker News

Study finds influence of smaller jersey numbers on perception

by jsm386 on 9/7/23, 4:08 PM with 37 comments

• by andtheboat on 9/7/23, 4:45 PM

  ...in american football.

  Context and history matter as this is the complete opposite for soccer:

  - Smaller numbers go to the defenders and big guys

  - Larger numbers are given to younger & academy player

  - Numbers like 7, 9, 10, 8 & 6 all have a specific meaning on the pitch

  So yeah, numbers matter, but so does everything else.

• by RandallBrown on 9/7/23, 5:09 PM

  https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/rules-changes/nfl-jerse...

  Linemen are required to wear higher numbers so it's no surprise that people automatically associate higher numbers with bigger people.

• by AndrewKemendo on 9/7/23, 4:46 PM

  I love this so much

  It’s such a great proof at how absolutely fundamentally tragically terrible humans are at evaluating things consistently based on purely sense perception.

• by mud_dauber on 9/7/23, 7:42 PM

  I wore "11" as a sophomore HS running back, then moved to "40" for my junior & senior years. I gained almost zero weight (or muscle), but I swear I looked GOOD with those skinny ones on my front & back.

• by Nicholas_C on 9/7/23, 5:48 PM

  I remember my teammates being extremely picky about which numbers they’d wear and I always caught grief for wearing #8 as a running back since it’s thought of as a QB number (Troy Aikman, Steve Young). In hindsight maybe they were on to something.

• by cbsmith on 9/7/23, 7:55 PM

  Gretzky seemed to do just fine with 99...

• by webel0 on 9/8/23, 2:28 AM

  This seems similar to observing that vertical and horizontal stripes on clothes (and the width of the stripes) can affect how one perceives a silhouette.

• by canjobear on 9/8/23, 1:05 AM

  No way this replicates. Classic junk psychology result.

• by m3kw9 on 9/7/23, 10:23 PM

  To level the play field all players must wear 3 digit numbers and the numbers 1, 0 and 7 will not be allowed