Sports Psychology, the Home Team Advantage, and Winning When it Matters Most
The NHL playoffs are fast approaching. Whether you’re a team trying to inch in, or if you’re close to the top of the league, the wins still matter. Coaches, players, and fans alike stress the importance of winning home ice advantage for the approaching first round. How important is this home ice advantage? Does it make that little extra difference that will push a team to greatness? A meta-analysis by Jamieson (2010) analyzed different sports, including hockey, golf, boxing, tennis, etc., and compared win-loss ratios over time, both in regular season and in playoffs. Surprisingly, where many teams hope the least amount of bias may be present, 63% of playoff/championship games are won by the home team; 59% during the regular season. Those are some pretty convincing numbers.
There are, of course, many different variables that may explain why this advantage exists. Crowd noise itself can provide that extra boost of adrenalin or feedback on situations during the game, for example. A popular theory is that the crowd and home arena/field has a substantial influence on the calls “unbiased” referees make. Nevill, Balmer, & Williams (2002) put this theory to the test with a simple experiment involving professional soccer referees in England. Refs were randomly assigned to two different rooms airing a pro game, one with and one without crowd noise. Referees in the silent room were less uncertain about their decisions and made both: a higher proportion of calls against the home team, and a no foul call on offenses throughout the game. It was, however, never the case that the two groups of referees differed on the direction of the calls.
With these studies, and others like them, players must contend with the realization that this phenomenon, even if it may be only slight, does exist. It is up to the players to realize that this fact is outside of their power. This is where sports psychologists (and other professionals) need to come in to educate and prepare athletes. Studies have shown, using physiological markers like testosterone and cortisol levels, that players are experiencing these effects physically and cognitively (see Carre et al., 2006). Trying to understand an athlete’s level of anxiety and arousal before a game can be critical to the performance in said game. One can only condition and practice so much; when game time comes, your state of mind, decisions, and emotions must prevail in order to overcome adversity you may face.
The common behavioral, cognitive, and emotional tests can, of course, be used to assess a player’s “preparedness” for a game, along with other biological tests to look at fluctuations and vulnerability before, during, and after the game to crowd exposure and setbacks. The biggest promise is in technological advances that can aid teams develop not only a proper state of mind for the athletes, but work in developing the attention and cognitive skills of the pros. For example, multiple object tracking (MOT) has been in trial to evaluate the attentional capacities of pro athletes. I believe this technology, when properly combined with other game-time variables that may influence a players performance, can mirror some game-time situations and help the athlete prepare for situations, like when at an opposing team’s arena. This can be achieved, for example, by working with the athlete to attend only to relevant stimulus, developing this attention, and ignoring other extraneous variables.
As a life-long Habs fan, I cannot wait for the playoffs begin. That being said, I also enjoy watching some of the great hockey players today, and witnessing them achieve and perform at extraordinary levels. Excitingly, the prospect that psychology, testing, and technology are unifying to bring our athletes to an even higher level of performance. I cannot wait to see what the next 10 years will bring as this technology is normally incorporated in training routines, and whether this will erase the home team advantage.
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References:
Carre, J., Muir, C., Belanger, J., Putnam, S. K. (2006). Pre-competition hormonal and psychological levels of elite hockey players: Reliationship to the ‘home advantage.’ Physiology & Behavior, 89(3), 392–398.
Jamieson, J. P. (2010). The Home Field Advantage in Athletics: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40(7), 1819–1848.
Nevill, A. M., Balmer, N. J., Williams, A. M. (2002). The influence of crowd noise and experience upon refereeing decisions in football. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 3(4), 261–272.
