The influence of referees' expertise, gender, motivation, and time constraints on decisional bias against women

The influence of player gender on referees' decision making was experimentally investigated. In Experiment 1, including 145 male handball referees, we investigated (a) the influence of referees' level of expertise on their decisional biases against women and (b) the referees' gender stereotypes. Results revealed that biases against women were powerful regardless of the referees' level of expertise and that male referees' stereotype toward female players tends to be negative. In Experiment 2, including 115 sport science students, we examined the influence of the participants' gender, motivation to control bias, and time constraints on gender bias. Results indicated that participants' gender had no impact on gender bias and that participants were able to reduce this bias in conditions in which they were motivated to control the bias.