Team identification, discrete emotions, satisfaction, and event attachment: A social identity perspective

Highlights

• Uses social identity theory and attachment theory to understand team and event attachment.

• Discrete emotions as outcomes of team identification are evaluated.

• The relationship between satisfaction with team performance and team attachment is evaluated.

• Examines pride as a moderating variable.

• Evaluates fans’ attachment to the All Blacks team and the Rugby World Cup 2015.

Abstract

Understanding the psychological aspects that influence fans’ attachment to a sporting event can help shape its legacy as well as preparations for similar future events. Using theories of social identity and attachment, this study evaluates the cognitive and affective predictors of fans’ attachment to an event. The study models discrete emotions (i.e., anger, sadness, happiness, and love) as outcomes of team identification, which in turn influences fans’ satisfaction with team performance and, by extension, team and event attachment. This proposition was tested using a sample of 324 ‘All Blacks’ fans who were surveyed online during the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The findings suggest that team identification has a positive influence on the discrete emotions of happiness and love, which then predict team attachment. Pride, meanwhile, moderates the relationship between team and event attachment. The paper discusses the implications of these results for event sustainability and fandom management.

Introduction

Cities and regions gain significant economic and social benefits from hosting sporting events (Hall, O’Mahony, & Vieceli, 2010). Against this background, many studies have focused on understanding residents’ supportive and spectating behaviors at events (Gursoy et al., 2017, Kaplanidou et al., 2013, Prayag et al., 2013). However, the literature has largely neglected the psychological factors that influence event attachment. Thus, this study investigates how the affective outcomes of team identification influence team and event attachment. Building on the work of Sen, Johnson, Bhattacharya, and Wang (2015), this study demonstrates that team identification and attachment are different, yet related concepts. Specifically, discrete emotions influence the relationship between team identification and attachment, which then positively impacts event attachment.

This research offers three contributions to theory in relation to sports marketing and management, as well as event marketing. First, it builds on the idea that team identification does not directly influence behavioral outcomes, but instead affects team attachment through discrete emotions. This contrasts with other research on team identification, which has prioritized behavioral outcomes such as purchase behavior towards sponsors (Gwinner & Swanson, 2003), event attendance (Wann, 2006), and merchandise sales (Kwon & Armstrong, 2002). Instead, this study investigates the affective outcomes of identification by studying discrete emotions and attachment using social identity theory and attachment theory, respectively.

By arguing that team identification can elicit both positive (happiness and love) and negative discrete emotions (anger and sadness), we offer a new set of antecedents to fan’s satisfaction with team performance and team attachment. Previous studies have either ignored team identification and attachment (Funk and James, 2001, Funk and James, 2006) or treated them as conceptually similar (Gray & Wert Gray, 2012). However, Sen et al. (2015) argued that this position is not supported by the two constructs’ underlying theories, i.e., social identity theory and attachment theory.

Second, our study offers a more holistic view of the psychological aspects of spectatorship. Prior studies mainly considered the antecedents of event attachment, such as sport identification (Prayag & Grivel, 2018), motivation (Filo, Funk, & O'Brien, 2010), and involvement with sport (Brown, Smith, & Assaker, 2016), in relation to in-person event spectators. However, both participants and spectators, whether on-site or not, contribute to the economic sustainability of an event (Filo et al., 2010). Thus, this study devotes attention to the attitudes and behaviors of non-attending spectators.

Third, the present study outlines some potential explanatory variables with regard to event attachment. Existing studies in this domain (Brown et al., 2016, Filo et al., 2010, Ouyang et al., 2017) did not consider team identification, discrete emotions or team attachment. For example, studies examining the role of emotions in sporting contexts (Emery et al., 2016, Filo and Coghlan, 2016, Moital et al., 2018) did not investigate whether discrete emotions can predict event attachment. While attachment is a general outcome of feeling strong positive emotions toward objects (Scannell & Gifford, 2010), most studies about the psychological determinants of event support (e.g., Gursoy et al., 2017, Prayag et al., 2013) have neglected the role of emotions. One exception is the study by Ouyang et al. (2017), but they only evaluated the moderating effects of event attachment on the event’s perceived benefits and costs; their study did not hypothesize any direct effects of emotions on attachment.

In an effort to address this gap, the present paper proceeds as follows: In the next sections, we present the study’s theoretical framework, which is based on social identity theory and attachment theory, and then develop the accompanying hypotheses. Afterward, we present the study’s method, results and implications. The paper concludes with a summary of the main contributions, along with the limitations of the study and avenues for future research.