7. Why some athletes resort to doping
Photo: Wladyslaw Image Source: Wikipedia (en)
Speaking of honesty and transparency, what makes some athletes prone to doping, while others resist? Is it just a matter of how strong one’s moral compass is? Not according to some studies. A 1995 survey of top-tier athletes suggests that “195 out of 198 admitted they would take performance enhancing drugs if they would win and not be caught.”
This figure might have to do with the fact that cheating is somewhat contagious: According to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, people are more drawn to cheat when they feel they can’t be caught, and especially if they see someone else cheating and getting away with it.
There are numerous reasons to steer clear of performance enhancing drugs besides their questionable morality; health risks abound with most methods and substances. Even so, over half of the athletes in the aforementioned survey claimed they would put their very lives at risk if it meant they could have five years of success in their sport. This says more about the power of our drive to win than anything else ever could.
8. Why some athletes play through injuries — even when it’s against their best interests
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Dealing with a debilitating injury has profound effects on the life of an athlete. Psychological issues can easily arise from physical injuries, most notably in how the athlete perceives themselves after being sidelined.
“When athletes have strong identity ties to their physical activity,” says sport psychology counselor Jim Gavin, “They are thrown into a state of shock or disorientation [when an injury occurs].”
Somewhere along the line, athletes are usually taught the difference between “good and bad pain,” learning to differentiate the general soreness from a workout from that of a serious injury. But the fear of being shut-down and thus being stripped of their identity makes some athletes deny even the most painful of injuries, increasing the likelihood of severe problems in the long run.
9. Why referees make biased decisions
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We’ve all been there: the referee in a given game is showing clear bias against our team. Some may shrug this off as away-team speculation, but it has been shown that referees tend to give harsher fouls to the visiting rivals. Most referees, regardless of experience level, will unconsciously take cues from the crowd – and the home team always reacts strongly to the fouls committed against them.
“The evidence is overwhelming,” says professor Alan Nevill, a biostatistics specialist at the UK’s Wolverhampton University. “And it is across a range of sports including football.”
Nevill conducted a study that included 40 referees who judged a total of 47 pre-recorded plays. A control group observed the plays in silence, and the other group observed the plays with crowd noise. Referees in the control group called significantly fewer fouls against the home team than the referees with noise – over 15% less.
To combat this, it’s been suggested that referee training include instruction on how to tune out distractions like crowd noise. Given the realities of the field, unconscious bias is likely to exist with or without that training — and maybe, some say, that’s not so terrible. Said David Forrest, professor of economics at Salford University, about the matter: “Statisticians think justice is everything. But randomness and noise create uncertainty of outcome, which is one of the appeals of sport.”
