National Bias in Judgments of Olympic-Level Skating

Abstract

Statistical analyses (tests of probability) of judges' scores for various segments of Olympic skating performances in 1984 and 1988 indicate the presence of national bias. Judges rate skaters of their own nationality above the average of the remaining judges. They tend to give skaters of their own nationality the maximum score (among the judges), and their over-all rank for these skaters tends to be higher than the skaters' final Olympic standings. The authors suggest the possible use of trimmed means as one method of minimizing the effects of such bias.

Do judges enhance home advantage in European championship boxing?

“…As hypothesized, the probability of a home win for technical knockouts fell between that of The present study provides strong support for research demonstrating increased officiating bias, of various types, in sports that involve subjective decision-making, specifically with regard to judging outcome (e.g. Ansorge & Scheer, 1988;Ansorge et al, 1978;Campbell & Galbraith, 1996;Park & Werthner, 1977;Scheer & Ansorge, 1975;Seltzer & Glass, 1991;Ste-Marie & Lee, 1996;Ste-Marie & Valiquette, 1996;Whissell et al, 1993). In addition, the significantly greater home advantage for points decisions supports the hypothesis that subjectively judged sports enjoy greater home advantage (e.g.…”

“…Nationalistic and/or political biases have been demonstrated for a range of subjectively judged events, including Olympic diving (Park & Werthner, 1977), figure skating (Campbell & Galbraith, 1996;Seltzer & Glass, 1991) and gymnastics (Ansorge & Scheer, 1988;Whissell, Lyons, Wilkinson, & Whissell, 1993). Interestingly, this bias seems to have changed little across time (Campbell & Galbraith, 1996) despite considerable interest in the issue, notably at the 1978 World Figure Skating Championships where the USSR judging delegation was suspended as a result of such bias.…”

The influence of crowd noise and experience upon refereeing decisions in football

“…In addition to the specific bias detected in conjunction with relative positions of attacker and defender, 9.3% of trials was found to be 'Flag Errors', that might be termed 'false alarms' had signal detection methodology been employed. Other instances have shown general bias as a result of pitcher reputation in baseball (Rainey, Larsen, & Stephenson, 1989), nationalistic and political bias in Olympic skating (Seltzer & Glass, 1991;Whissell, Lyons, Wilkinson, & Whissell, 1993) and gymnastics (Ansorge & Scheer, 1988), as well bias in the home advantage in conjunction with subjective officiating (Balmer, Nevill, & Williams, 2001).…”

Winning Isn’t Everything: The Effect of Nationalism Bias on Enjoyment of a Mediated Sporting Event

“…Figure skating, gymnastics, and ski jumping are three sports which have received previous attention from researchers, and conclusions from different examinations over the span of multiple years and Olympic games has shown judges score the athletes from their own countries higher than athletes from other countries (Ansorge & Scheer, 1988;Seltzer & Glass, 1991;Whissell, Lyons, Wilkinson, & Whissell, 1993;Popovic, 2000;Lock & Lock, 2003;Zitzewitz, 2006). One constant limitation of doing studies of figure skating and gymnastics is detailed and individual judging results are not released to the public (more so in gymnastics events), so speculation has to occur to draw conclusions.…”