Sheldon Cooper once pointed out a flaw inherent in the game of rock-paper-scissors — that people who know each other can anticipate the most likely outcome — which is why he introduced millions of viewers of The Big Bang Theory to a relatively new twist on the old game. Of course, there’s a weakness with this twist, especially for a certain kind of person:

Chinese scientists, meanwhile, have discovered that even people who don’t know each other can more often than not anticipate the outcome of rock-paper-scissors by observing a tendency called “win-stay lose-shift”

When players won a round, they tended to repeat their winning rock, paper or scissors more often than would be expected at random (one in three).

Losers, on the other hand, tended to switch to a different action. And they did so in order of the name of the game – moving from rock, to paper, to scissors.

Now that you know this, do you think you can consciously avoid making the same strategic error?