<p>Let’s say you flip a coin three thousand times. If it comes up heads two thousand times, I think it’s safe to say that people will assume this is a rigged coin in spite of the fact that each outcome is equally likely. Closer to the middle, the line gets less certain. Some people would consider 1550/1450 a genuine outcome whereas others wouldn’t. Is there research that has attempted to measure the crossover point here? </p>

<p>I’m looking for some study that has presented people with “random” data, such as coin flips or die rolls, and asked them if they think it was “rigged” or not. </p>

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2018-09-26T03:08:17.690Z
I'm not sure this is a good empirical research topic since the question can be answered by [calculation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers), reducing it to a probability, so it would be more or less a proxy for education in applied probability theory (plus intuitive feeling of when a probability is a "sure thing") . There has been some empirical research on the latter. If that's what what you want know, it's probably best you ask a separate question.
got trolled too much this week
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2018-09-26T03:23:21.047Z
Also there has been research on when people judge a *given sequence* of such tosses random or not, but that's more involved than being presented with a summary (and it also depends on what the question actually asks); see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11990321
got trolled too much this week
<reference-request><experimental-psychology>
Is there research that estimates when people think something supposedly random is rigged?
Zenon
# Is there research that estimates when people think something supposedly random is rigged?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-03-17)

Let’s say you flip a coin three thousand times. If it comes up heads two thousand times, I think it’s safe to say that people will assume this is a rigged coin in spite of the fact that each outcome is equally likely. Closer to the middle, the line gets less certain. Some people would consider 1550/1450 a genuine outcome whereas others wouldn’t. Is there research that has attempted to measure the crossover point here?

I’m looking for some study that has presented people with “random” data, such as coin flips or die rolls, and asked them if they think it was “rigged” or not.

**Tags:** reference-request, experimental-psychology

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I'm not sure this is a good empirical research topic since the question can be answered by [calculation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers), reducing it to a probability, so it would be more or less a proxy for education in applied probability theory (plus intuitive feeling of when a probability is a "sure thing") . There has been some empirical research on the latter. If that's what what you want know, it's probably best you ask a separate question.  
> **username_1**: Also there has been research on when people judge a *given sequence* of such tosses random or not, but that's more involved than being presented with a summary (and it also depends on what the question actually asks); see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11990321  

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## 0 answers

