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Shootout at the Blogger Corral |
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 |
Academics still on the sidelines of the web 2.0 and blogging revolution can learn a thing or two from a recent study on penalty kicks by a group of Israeli economists. Are we blogging (or not) for fear of looking foolish?
There are few moments so loaded with tension in the sporting world as a penalty kick to decide the outcome of a football match. The singular sound of the hushed crowd, the moment when eyes meet in cold embrace between shooter and keeper and finally the outcome inciting rapture or despair.
Turns out that according to recent academic research the key to stopping a penalty kick lies in simple economic psychology. Most goalkeepers move left or right before the ball is kicked but a study on the distribution of 286 penalty kicks indicates the best choice is to remain still in the middle of the goal.
So why don't goalkeepers follow this advise instead of reducing the odds of a save by darting to the left or the right? The research study, Action Bias Among Elite Soccer Goalkeepers: The Case of Penalty Kicks, suggests this is due to "norm theory" which holds that people act according to convention, not reason, for fear of looking foolish.
In typical circumstances when facing choices with potentially negative outcomes, people will do nothing, on the theory that a harmful outcome looks worse when it is the product of action instead of inaction. For football keepers this pattern is reversed as keepers feel they will look foolish if they just stand in the middle of the goal and the ball whizzes by into the corner.
So what does this heavily stretched metaphor potentially tell us about academics that resist or endorse participation in the informal publishing worlds of the web?
Perhaps that norm theory is working its magic both ways on academic bloggers and abstainers alike. Some who blog are doing so because they believe they'll be left behind or look foolish to students if they are not alive in the mix. Those who feign disinterest are doing so because they feel they may look foolish to their more traditional contemporaries who perceive the open rules of online publishing as an affront to peer-review rigour.
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