The Psychology of Refereeing | #MentoringMonday

We’re delving into another podcast episode on this #MentoringMonday. Stuart Carrington's appearance on Dan Abrahams' The Sport Psych Show introduces many of the concepts that appear in Carrington’s book, “Blowing The Whistle: The Psychology of a Referee”.

Football Refereeing and Hockey Umpiring

I think I’ve mentioned I’m not much of a football fan (real talk: I’m not at all a football fan). However, there are obviously many shared paradigms between officials of different sports and there’s tons of useful information in here. What Carrington has done is gather empirical data on English football referees to draw conclusions about psychology’s impact on performance.

For example, he covers aspects like how home crowds impact the severity of decisions made against the away team, and how criticism of umpires by popular figures can centrally impact on public perception of their ability.

He also delves into general concepts like the power of conformity on our ability to make correct decisions, schema theory of player reputation, our biases regarding players physiques and our perceptions of fair play. 

There also some great stuff on stress and how or what we perceive our emotions to be as the determining factor as to whether our performance is negatively or positively impacted. And did you know that when an umpire is feeling sad, depressed or under the weather, they are less likely to make a contentious decision?

Give it a listen and let me know your thoughts!

Registration is open for “Positioning For The Modern Umpire“. This fully-interactive webinar will equip you with a new approach to all the places you go on the pitch and a deep understanding of WHY you go there.

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