Expectation biases in gymnastics judging

Several studies have found that gymnasts' placement in within-team order af fects their scores (e.g., Scheer & Ansorge, 1975). This effect has been exp lained in terms of judges' expectations yielding a cognitive confirmation. In the present study, the influence of expectations on gymnastics judging w as conceptualized within the schema approach of social cognition research. Three factors are addressed that contribute to the understanding of the pla cement effect: task difficulty, social situation, and process stages. In an experiment, 48 gymnastics judges scored videotaped routines of a men's tea m competition. Target routines appeared either in the first or the fifth po sition of within-team order. Depending on the difficulty of the judgment ta sk, a significant placement effect was found. This effect resulted from bia sed encoding of single elements, as well as from heuristic judgment strateg ies. Results are discussed in reference to the practice of gymnastics judgi ng.