Red, the ultimate cure for fairness
On the last day of every golf tournament, Tiger Woods insists on wearing a bright red polo shirt. Woods says the habit is merely superstition, but new research suggests that his fashion sense might actually come with athletic benefits.
A paper published this month in Psychological Science reports that referees and umpires subconsciously favor competitors in red uniforms. The experiment was clever: the scientists showed 42 experienced tae kwon do referees video clips of five different male competitors. Each clip featured one athlete in red and another athlete in blue. At first, the referees were shown the original videos, and asked to score the match. Then, they were shown the same clips but with the colors digitally swapped, so that the athlete originally wearing red was now wearing blue. This single alteration had a significant impact on the outcome, with competitors dressed in red scoring, on average, 13 percent more points than their opponents in blue.
