Collective rituals in team sports: Implications for team resilience and communal coping

Abstract

Many sports teams engage in collective rituals (e.g., the New Zealand All Blacks’ haka). While the concept has been studied extensively in other fields (e.g., social psychology and cultural anthropology), literature on collective rituals specific to sport is limited. Leveraging theoretical positions and empirical findings from across the human and social sciences, the application of an existing definition of collective ritual in team sports is explored. Complementary research is suggestive of a potential link between collective rituals and two growing topics of interest in group dynamics, namely, team resilience and communal coping. Collective rituals can bolster team resilience by strengthening the group structure and increasing a team’s social capital. They can also serve as communal coping strategies, helping to manage team stressors as they arise. However, at the extremes, collective rituals can become problematic. Over-reliance and abusive rites of passage (i.e., hazing) are considered. Potential applied implications and future research directions in sport psychology are then discussed.