Abstract

MOURA, Santana; SOUZA, Bruno Campello de  and  ROAZZI, Antonio. The judgment of plays in a match: a comparative study between football (soccer) referees and fans. Interam. j. psychol. [online]. 2009, vol.43, n.2, pp. 383-394. ISSN 0034-9690.

The goal of the present article is to present a comparative study between football (soccer) referees and fans as to the adoption of criteria for the judgment of plays in a match. In accordance to the theories of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, this theme was considered to be related to moral judgement. The sample used was composed of 61 referees and 30 fans, resident in two states of the Brazilian Northeast, with an average age of 34 years, all male. The participants answered, in writing, to eight hypothetical situations involving or not the game of football. Though, historically speaking, these two groups have always stood in opposite sides of the football field, in the current scientific investigation, their results, as a whole, did not express substantial differences between their respective positions. In the footballrelated situations, however, the referees showed themselves to be more deontologic while the fans proved to be more social. Most of the time, both groups objected to the injustices present in the situations proposed and were shown to be coherent with such a stance in their judgements. The study brought light to the field of research in moral judgement and served as a starting point for one to better know the judgement criteria used by referees when faced with football plays, providing possibilities for future research and for new investigations regarding the interface between football and psychology.

Keywords : Moral judgment; Football plays; Football referees; Football fans.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )