The idea that a near miss would lead us to play again immediately is another one of those things that seems weird but isn’t. Psychologists have been observing it for decades. They can even plot it on graphs. Let’s say we do something and expect something to happen. If that “something” doesn’t happen, we immediately repeat the behavior. Fast and hard. For example, we hit an elevator button. If the button doesn’t light up, we’ll quickly jab at the button a bunch of times in a row. Another example: A child says “Mom” and gets ignored. He’ll follow that up with “Mom. Mom. MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM…”
