Terror management and the vicissitudes of sports fan affiliation: The effects of mortality salience on optimism and fan identification
Publication year
2000Source
European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 6, (2000), pp. 813-836ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor
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Organization
SW OZ BSI SCP
Journal title
European Journal of Social Psychology
Volume
vol. 30
Issue
iss. 6
Page start
p. 813
Page end
p. 836
Subject
Behaviour Change and Well-beingAbstract
The present research examined the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that identifications with sports teams shield against the potential consequences of awareness of death. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Dutch participants who were reminded of their death expressed greater optimism about the results of the national soccer team compared to a control condition. Experiment 2 conceptually replicated this finding with American participants and college sports teams. In addition, Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that success of a team is a prerequisite for sports fan affiliation to function as a buffer against death concerns. Before the college football season began, participants who were reminded about death expressed greater relative preference for a more salient, but less successful college football team over a national college champion basketball team compared to control participants. However, after the football team lost its first game of the season, participants who were reminded about death indicated greater relative preference for the successful basketball team. Results are discussed with regard to the psychological function of social identifications.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [238586]
- Faculty of Social Sciences [29513]
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