If you want to win, you need to make the referee see red, says a new German study.
Researchers found that those who wear red score 10 percent more in any competition than if they wore any other color, according to the UK’s Daily Mail.
Sports psychologists at Germany’s University of Munster asked 42 experienced referees to judge taekwondo bouts on video. One competitor wore red; the other wore blue. Then the referees were shown the same clips, only the researchers had managed to digitally swap the colors.
The combatants in red won an average of 13 percent more points than when they wore blue. (Why choose taekwondo and not, say, football or soccer? A previous study found that the color had a huge impact on outcomes.)
Scientists hypothesize that red makes the wearer feel more confident, while others look at the person and think he or she is more aggressive and dominant. Meanwhile, the study’s authors suggest it may be necessary to even the playing field by calling time on wearing the color red where it can sway judgment of referees.
“We propose that the perception of colors triggers a psychological effect in referees,” study lead author Norbert Hagemann, a psychologist at the University of Munster, told New Scientist.
But off the playing field, perhaps it’s time to bring back the 80s red power suit — minus the shoulder pads, of course.