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Using Social Psychology to Evaluate Race and Law in Sports
- West Virginia University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Using Social Psychology to Evaluate Race and Law in Sports Michael A. McCann* I. Introduction T his chapter examines the connection between social psychology and the larger topic of race, sports, and the law. It begins by discussing human attitudes and cognitive biases and then turns to what could be the most clearly detectable, or at least the most controversial, connection between social psychology, race, and sports law: the alleged nexus between implicit attitudes and patterns of referees and umpires when officiating games. In particular, the chapter discusses recent research on the supposed propensity of National Basketball Association (NBA) referees to call fouls on African American players with greater frequency than objective data would predict. The chapter also considers new research on Major League Baseball (MLB) umpires and a possible relationship between pitchers’ race and umpires’ called balls and strikes. It then raises the possibility that the Wonderlic Personal Test (Wonderlic or Wonderlic Test) for the National Football League (NFL) draft and similar tests may corroborate findings on stereotype threat. The chapter concludes by noting the importance of law and collective bargaining in rectifying related concerns. II. Attitudes and Cognitive Biases There are two primary types of attitudes that influence our behaviors: implicit attitudes and explicit attitudes, the latter of which are sometimes divided into two groups, express attitudes and private attitudes.1 Implicit attitudes are attitudes of which we are not consciously aware. Formed through our neural processes, they exist subconsciously in our brains and affect the way we think. Implicit attitudes impact how we form attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, and stereotypes. Express attitudes, in contrast, are attitudes of which we are consciously aware and are willing 312 Michael McCann to share with others. Express attitudes tend to be self-flattering. For example, a person might state, “I don’t care whether someone is white, black, red, orange, green, or purple. I treat everyone fairly.” Such a statement would comprise an express attitude. Not only are we aware of our express attitudes, but we usually believe them to be true. We are also normally willing to share them with others, in part because they often enhance others’ perceptions of us. We also have private attitudes. Like express attitudes, we are aware of their presence; unlike express attitudes, we are either unwilling to share them or willing to share them only in very specific and familiar social settings. Generally, private attitudes comprise the sorts of viewpoints that we bring up with our families or close friends but, out of fear of others’ reactions, rarely mention to other persons. To summarize, both express attitudes and private attitudes are very different from implicit attitudes . Whereas we are consciously aware of our explicit and private attitudes, implicit attitudes lie beyond our conscious understanding. A skeptic might resist the possibility of implicit attitudes or at least question their alleged influence . This person might say, “I know what I believe, I know what I feel, I’m intentional, I’m deliberate —I’m calling my own shots.” On some level, the skeptic would be correct. Through empirical research, however, social psychologists and related mind scientists have discovered that we often misinterpret the causes of our behavior. For instance, we appear more influenced by situational constraints than we consciously perceive.2 Such findings pose implications for lawmakers and legal commentators. In recent years, there has been much written on the systematic and unintentional errors of human decision-making and how the law should be shaped as a result.3 Much of this research has centered on cognitive biases and heuristics, which together comprise mental processes that impair rational thought-processes and ultimately lead to “irrational” choices.4 Optimism bias, which posits that individuals assume that general risks do not apply with equal force to themselves, has received particular notice.5 Consider its relevance to smokers. Psychologists have found that smokers are very aware of the general risks of smoking: they see the warnings and they know the dire consequences. Tobacco packaging warnings, in fact, probably could not be rewritten in more ominous tones. Nonetheless, and without any logical reason or rationale, a typical smoker tends to discount the general risks of tobacco ingestion as applied to himself or herself.6 Similarly, consider that the average American believes that the “average American” has a two in five chance over the course of his or her lifetime of being the victim of a violent crime.7 Yet when asked what his or her own chances are, data suggest that...