Psychological Perspectives
 

I had several games over the weekend where, not surprisingly, coaches and players "saw" things differently than I did, and I began to wonder: has anyone ever seen any studies of bias and perspective? That is, analyses of if and why people see what they want to see, rather than what is really in front of them?

If so, and you could provide a link or some such, I'd be interested in reading them, although the phenomenon would not surprise any sports official.

Don't have a link to a formal study but personal experience is a great teacher. From years of going to karate competitions, marching contest and competitive cheerleading competitions I can tell you that the performance you see live and think is almost perfect is completely different than the one you watch on tape later. Not entirely different than the experience of breaking down a game video after you leave the court thinking "We had a good night tonight. Great job guys!"

When officiating, I remind myself that there are normally just two or three people in the entire gym who do not have an emotional interest in the outcome. We see with our eyes...they see with their heart.

Confirmation Bias
 

There has been a lot written about phenomenon called Confirmation Bias, which is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. Most often around emotionally charged circumstances.

Thanks, that's along the lines I was wondering about.

Man it's funny you bring this up, I was thinking about the same thing this weekend. I had a game in which we called 2 travels in 4 possessions or something like that on the home team, and after the 2nd call, coach was saying something to the effect that the other team was doing the same thing (they weren't, not even close.) But of course for the next several minutes, the coach would yell travel at anything he felt was even close, and I started wondering what sort of proof there was for magically seeing something like that when you are specifically looking for it. Psychology is pretty cool stuff...

And then there is the sage perspective of Ron White:

"You can't fix stupid." :D

No, but fortunately we have the ability to silence it in these cases.

I don't know about cool, but at least I'm happy my grad program works for something -- coaches.

Book Recommendation
 

I would highly recommend the following book...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Whistleblo.../dp/161168451X

This book addresses the psychology and biases in what we see.

We have some local coaches that are faster than any officials at calling traveling, fouls, etc.

I was in front of one after calling a foul that he beat me to by a split-second. I was in a good mood and with a smile on my face said, "You're faster than me. Give me a chance."

He said, with all seriousness, "I've been doing this a long time."

So I replied, "Me too. But I actually have to be right."

Not sure he completely got what I said, either.

There is that!

Seriously, the coaches, players and fans are all susceptible to confirmation bias as previously mentioned, as they all have some type of vested interest in the outcome. The only people in the gym that don't have a vested interest in the outcome are the officials.

In regard to the OP, you can't let them get to you. I started to last night but ended up realizing they (the fans) were idiots. I had a team getting blown out, a very bad partner, and terrible fans in a small quiet gym. Every call some fan was yelling at me and I was making all the calls [emoji19]. In a loud gym, would never have heard it and it wasn't to a point of getting the AD involved, though she was standing right there if I would have needed to. I started to think "am I missing a lot here" until we had a shot hit the top of board and come back down in play and all the monkeys started howling for oob. At that point, I realized the idiots didn't even know that rule and to stop sweating their opinions. All said, have confidence in your ability to be a neutral arbiter and don't worry about the idiots howling.

BDR, thanks for sharing the anecdote [no snark intended], but you read something into my query that is not there: I'm quite comfortable with my officiating and game management abilities, and I don't let the chirping undermine my confidence. I was simply wondering if there are scientific studies behind the concept I now know is confirmation bias. For that matter, no one knows better than I do when I've kicked a call--I don't need the monkeys for that.

Now that I've been officiating basketball for more than a decade, I wish I had at least minored in Sports Psychology in college. The behaviors of coaches, players, fans and officials during events is very interesting to analyze. There are so many factors that determine behavior.

Great response. I need to add that one to my "Coach Communication List". A list I developed earlier for new officials, with the help of others.