Source
What the account says
A rival is an identity threat and an identity resource at once. Fans who see their rivalry as more intense believe the rival’s fans respect them less. They also see their own fan community as more distinct and more cohesive, and as better regarded by fans of other clubs. The resource side depends on the belief that the rival returns the antagonism, that one’s own club is “the rival for the rival”. It does not depend on how strongly fans separate themselves from the rival.
What was actually shown
One cross-sectional survey, December 2014, eight clubs, N = 571 after excluding the 164 who named no archrival. The total effects are as above. The direct paths from intensity to the three positive outcomes are null (−.08, .04, .01), and the indirect effects through reciprocity are significant. The pattern could have come out otherwise, with disidentification carrying the effect or with no positive effects at all.
What this does not say
- Not that rivalry causes these outcomes. The design is correlational; the arrows are the model’s.
- Not that rivalries are good on balance. The negative effect on regard from the rival’s fans is the largest single effect.
- Not anything about fans without a rival, who were excluded.
- Not that perceived reciprocity is accurate. Whether the rival’s fans in fact return the antagonism was not measured.
Bearing
- CASE-098. It ties fans’ identity to a relational perception, the mutuality of the rivalry, which is the two-sidedness the case’s institutionalized rivalry requires. Still individual-level evidence.
- THEORY-1114. That fans’ regard for their group differs by which out-group judges it is what SCT’s context-dependence predicts; the study does not test SCT.