SPORT FAN AGGRESSION AND ANONYMITY: THE IMPORTANCE OF TEAM IDENTIFICATION
The current study tested the hypothesis that there would be a positive relationship between sport team identification and willingness to injure anonymously an opposing player or coach. To test this hypothesis, 88 college students were asked to indicate their willingness to murder someone
anonymously and their willingness to injure anonymously the star player and coach of a rival team. The data confirmed the hypothesis, even after controlling for level of sport fandom. However, because the data failed to reveal a significant relationship between team identification and desire
to murder someone anonymously, it is apparent that the highly identified fans were not simply more aggressive in general. Rather, they were more aggressive only when the target was a player or coach of a rival team. Discussion centers on the instrumental nature of the current form of fan aggression.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 January 1999
- The Journal's core purpose is scientific communication in the disciplines of Social Psychology, Developmental and Personality Psychology
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Submit a Paper
- Subscribe to this Title
- Terms & Conditions
- Contact the Publisher
- Search
- Manuscript Guidelines
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content