The Home Team Advantage Gives Football Referees Something to Ruminate about

Abstract

Observation suggests that referees significantly contribute to the home team advantage in football. The atmosphere created by the home team fans is thought to be the major contributing factor, but the extent of this influence is dependent on the referee. The Decision-Specific Reinvestment Scale was developed to identify those individuals susceptible to disrupted decision making under pressure as a result of their tendency to over-involve consciousness in decision making (Decision Reinvestment) or as a result of their tendency to ruminate upon poor decisions made in the past (Decision Rumination). We asked qualified referees to make a series of video-based decisions to examine whether the home team advantage effect was associated with a high or low tendency for Decision Reinvestment or Decision Rumination. We showed that referees categorized as high Decision Ruminators disproportionately made decisions in favour of the home team. The tendency to ruminate upon poor decisions may help explain some of the variance in the home team advantage effect shown by different referees. We conclude that aspects of personality should be considered in the development of training programs designed to improve and standardise football refereeing.