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sleepyjl
Guest
But that's just speculation. You're treating it as some natural behavior that humans do. Humans make mistakes, yes. Humans acting within the norms is not natural but a result of socialization. It's easier to be part of the pack than be a freak. My point is that you can't just say that since X comp is held in a Y's country where Y and Z have conflicts, judges must score according to Y. That's just an assumption that the judges will be lynched for doing otherwise or that the country in question will withdraw sponsorships.
You're misreading what I said. Judges are not consciously making these biased calls; it's not because they're worried about getting lynched or the loss of sponsorships or even about peer pressure. It's just the way people behave. Go to any athletic competition and ask the fans to keep track of penalties objectively and voila, they believe (honestly) that their opponents are committing more penalties. "Well, duh," you say. But what is astounding is that you can predict how non-fans (i.e., people who have no investment in one team or another) will count penalties based on which team's section they are sitting in!!! It's just how humans are hard-wired. They end up identifying with the people around them and show bias against people the surrounding crowd sees as the "other" without even realizing it.