The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology conducted a study looking into, as the New York Times put it, “bias in unsportsmanlike conduct penalties called after touchdowns.” If you don’t want to fork over the $31 to read the entire study, here’s the crux:

Although celebratory Black and White players were perceived as being equally arrogant, Black players were penalized with lower compensation whereas White players were not. Mediation analyses show that perceived arrogance mediated the effect of celebration on compensation, even when controlling for perceived aggression.

While a very interesting premise (one I tend to agree with), my only problem here is this: “The two researchers, Erika V. Hall, a doctoral candidate, and Robert W. Livingston, an associate professor of management and organizations, tried to gather more insight by posing a series of hypothetical situations to a group of people.”

From these hypothetical situations, they gathered this: “the same pattern of blacks being punished more than whites seems to hold true both in the N.F.L. and in this experiment. I would conclude that the results are generalizable to N.F.L. referees.”

I’m going to need something a bit more concrete. [NYT]