Intergroup criticism promoted fan aggression in Austrian national team supporters during the European Football Championship 2024

IF 3.3 2区心理学 Q2 HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM

Psychology of Sport and Exercise Pub Date : 2025-05-31 DOI:10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102907

Jeremias Braid , J. Lukas Thürmer , Sean M. McCrea , Fabio Richlan

{"title":"Intergroup criticism promoted fan aggression in Austrian national team supporters during the European Football Championship 2024","authors":"Jeremias Braid , J. Lukas Thürmer , Sean M. McCrea , Fabio Richlan","doi":"10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102907","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Fan aggression in football has severe direct (unpleasant experiences, bodily injuries, even death) and indirect (reputation and sanctions) consequences for fans; it is therefore crucial to understand the underlying psychological processes precisely. We argue that the intergroup context in and around stadiums fosters aggression, since opposing fans engage in bidirectional provocation in close physical proximity. Such critical communication across group boundaries (intergroup criticism) reliably elicits costly punishment, a common measure of aggression. Accordingly, our key aim was to investigate intergroup criticism as a candidate psychological process underlying fan aggression; we additionally explored the role of team rivalry. We hypothesized that critical outgroup commenters would elicit more aggression than ingroup commenters. Our online experiment during the European Football Championship 2024 followed a 3-cell within-participants design: Austrian fans (<em>N</em> = 60) read three critical comments on their fan culture from an ingroup source (Austrian fan) and two outgroup sources (German fan and Swiss fan). Participants indeed evaluated outgroup commenters (motive η<sup>2</sup> = .36, anger η<sup>2</sup> = .11, and sympathy η<sup>2</sup> = .17) and messages (threat η<sup>2</sup> = .19) more negatively than an ingroup commenter voicing the same message. This effect extended to behavioral costly punishment (η<sup>2</sup> = .11), indicating that intergroup criticism elicited aggressive fan behavior. No reliable differences between rival (Germany) and non-rival (Switzerland) outgroups emerged, indicating that intergroup criticism promotes fan aggression independent of rivalry. We discuss how intergroup criticism catalyzes fan aggression and how this knowledge contributes to the cultivation of peaceful sports events.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54536,"journal":{"name":"Psychology of Sport and Exercise","volume":"80 ","pages":"Article 102907"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Psychology of Sport and Exercise","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1469029225001062","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Fan aggression in football has severe direct (unpleasant experiences, bodily injuries, even death) and indirect (reputation and sanctions) consequences for fans; it is therefore crucial to understand the underlying psychological processes precisely. We argue that the intergroup context in and around stadiums fosters aggression, since opposing fans engage in bidirectional provocation in close physical proximity. Such critical communication across group boundaries (intergroup criticism) reliably elicits costly punishment, a common measure of aggression. Accordingly, our key aim was to investigate intergroup criticism as a candidate psychological process underlying fan aggression; we additionally explored the role of team rivalry. We hypothesized that critical outgroup commenters would elicit more aggression than ingroup commenters. Our online experiment during the European Football Championship 2024 followed a 3-cell within-participants design: Austrian fans (N = 60) read three critical comments on their fan culture from an ingroup source (Austrian fan) and two outgroup sources (German fan and Swiss fan). Participants indeed evaluated outgroup commenters (motive η² = .36, anger η² = .11, and sympathy η² = .17) and messages (threat η² = .19) more negatively than an ingroup commenter voicing the same message. This effect extended to behavioral costly punishment (η² = .11), indicating that intergroup criticism elicited aggressive fan behavior. No reliable differences between rival (Germany) and non-rival (Switzerland) outgroups emerged, indicating that intergroup criticism promotes fan aggression independent of rivalry. We discuss how intergroup criticism catalyzes fan aggression and how this knowledge contributes to the cultivation of peaceful sports events.

查看原文本刊更多论文

在2024年欧洲足球锦标赛期间，小组间的批评促进了奥地利国家队球迷的攻击性。

在足球比赛中，球迷的攻击行为会给球迷带来严重的直接（不愉快的经历，身体伤害，甚至死亡）和间接（名誉和制裁）后果；因此，准确理解潜在的心理过程是至关重要的。我们认为，体育场内和周围的群体间环境会助长攻击性，因为对方球迷会在近距离的身体接触中进行双向挑衅。这种跨越群体边界的批判性交流（群体间批评）必然会招致代价高昂的惩罚，这是一种常见的侵略措施。因此，我们的主要目的是调查群体间批评作为潜在球迷攻击的心理过程；我们还探讨了团队竞争的作用。我们假设批评性的外群体评论会比内群体评论引发更多的攻击性。我们在2024年欧洲足球锦标赛期间的在线实验遵循了参与者内部的3单元设计：奥地利球迷（N = 60）阅读了来自内部群体来源（奥地利球迷）和两个外部群体来源（德国球迷和瑞士球迷）的三条关于他们球迷文化的批评评论。参与者确实对外群体评论（动机η值2 = 0.36，愤怒η值2 = 0.11，同情η值2 = 0.17）和信息（威胁η值2 = 0.19）的评价比发表相同信息的内群体评论更为负面。这种效应延伸到行为代价惩罚（η2 = 0.11），表明群体间批评引发了攻击性粉丝行为。竞争对手（德国）和非竞争对手（瑞士）的外群体之间没有可靠的差异，这表明群体间的批评促进了球迷的攻击性，而不依赖于竞争。我们讨论了群体间的批评如何催化球迷的攻击性，以及这种知识如何有助于培养和平的体育赛事。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Psychology of Sport and Exercise 医学-心理学

CiteScore

6.40

自引率

5.90%

发文量

172

审稿时长

69 days

期刊介绍： Psychology of Sport and Exercise is an international forum for scholarly reports in the psychology of sport and exercise, broadly defined. The journal is open to the use of diverse methodological approaches. Manuscripts that will be considered for publication will present results from high quality empirical research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, commentaries concerning already published PSE papers or topics of general interest for PSE readers, protocol papers for trials, and reports of professional practice (which will need to demonstrate academic rigour and go beyond mere description). The CONSORT guidelines consort-statement need to be followed for protocol papers for trials; authors should present a flow diagramme and attach with their cover letter the CONSORT checklist. For meta-analysis, the PRISMA prisma-statement guidelines should be followed; authors should present a flow diagramme and attach with their cover letter the PRISMA checklist. For systematic reviews it is recommended that the PRISMA guidelines are followed, although it is not compulsory. Authors interested in submitting replications of published studies need to contact the Editors-in-Chief before they start their replication. We are not interested in manuscripts that aim to test the psychometric properties of an existing scale from English to another language, unless new validation methods are used which address previously unanswered research questions.