One of the most interesting aspects of social life is how crowds influence us. We may even end up doing something that isn’t in our best interests. To examine this Thomas Dohmen looked at social influence and German soccer referees.
Referees Want To Be Impartial
Dohmen suggests, reasonably enough, that referees really do want to be impartial. He doesn’t just argue that referees are fundamentally decent people. (Of course, they may be but that isn’t the argument). Instead, he notes that they get further appointments by making fair, i.e. correct, decisions. All the referees’ hard incentives mean that they should aim for fairness.
Does anything work against this fairness objective? Yes, the crowd at the game influence the referee. To show this Dohmen uses a fantastic data set. He has details of all the activity in German premier league matches (the Bundesliga) from 1992 to 2004. He also has data on which calls were regarded as wrong. To establish which calls were wrong he draws on the analysis of a panel of experts reviewing the decisions on video in the cold light of day. Dohmen can thus detect any bias. He can make a case for knowing when bad decisions are made.
Home Bias
His main question is: when they make a mistake are referees more likely to favor the home side? Indeed they are. The massive number of home fans screaming at the referee seems to influence the referees’ decisions. Remember this is despite referees training to ignore pressure. They also have incentives to make fair decisions and so not succumb to pressure from the crowd.
As Dohmen (2008, page 420) says, “.. a smaller fraction of penalties kicks for the home team is rightly awarded (65.20% vs. 72.57%)”. When you play at home the crowd wins your team more dubious penalties. This also holds, though less dramatically, for goals.
Furthermore, when the home side is losing by one goal, i.e. needs time to chase the game, the referee is more likely to award more discretionary extra time at the end of the game to compensate for stoppages. The home team gets all the breaks.
Social Influence And German Soccer Referees
To drive home the point Dohmen shows that when the crowd is nearer the referee, because there is no running track between them and the pitch, they exert a greater influence on the referee.
The message is that when someone tells you they aren’t influenced by social pressure don’t believe them. They are only telling you what they think you want to hear.
For more on social interaction and influence see here, here, and here. West Ham, the team I support, moved to a stadium with a running track, it was not initially popular, see here.
Read: Thomas J. Dohmen (2008) The Influence of Social Forces: Evidence from the Behavior of Football Referees, Economic Inquiry, 46 (3), pages 411-424.