COGNITIVE STYLES OF ELITE FOOTBALL REFEREES IN BULGARIA

In the game of football the referee is one of the most important figures. His role is an integral part of the game. The modern game has very fast and complicated situations and the referee has to be equipped with professional skills and responsible for enforcing the laws of the game. Every second there is a lot of information on the pitch which has to be integrated. Psychologists are trying to describe this processes and to separate the different styles of information receiving and decision making. Kirton Adaption/Innovation Inventory, KAI (Kirton, 1976), adapted by S. Vasileva, 2003. The questionnaire contains 33 items: hree scales - originality, efficacy, conformity. The cognitive styles are part of the complete adaptation to the game and the preferred way of thinking in most of the game situations. The basic direction of this report is to carry out theoretical and empirical research on the cognitive styles of elite referees in Bulgaria. The main part of the report is a comparison between referees in first league, second league, U17 and U19 league. Typically the number of the referees in that study is 116. We suggest that the three styles (conformity, originality, efficiency) in this study could be dfferent according to the experience, age and gender characteristics of the referees.