Moderating and Mediating Effects of Team Identification in Regard to Causal Attributions and Summary Judgments Following a Game Outcome

Fans’ causal attributions for a game outcome refer to their assessments of the underlying reasons for why things turned out as they did. We investigate the extent to which team identification moderates fans’ attributional responses to a game outcome so as to produce a self-serving bias that favors the preferred team. Also explored is the ability of team identification to mediate the effect of attributions on the summary judgments of basking in reflected glory (BIRG) and satisfaction with the team’s perfor mance. Consistent with a self-serving bias, we found that highly identified fans were more likely to attribute a winning effort to stable and internal causes than were lowly identified fans. Moreover, the extremity of response between winners and losers was greater among highly identified fans than lowly identified fans. Team identification was also found to mediate the influence of (a) stability on BIRGing and (b) internal control on BIRGing. No such mediation effects were observed in the case of satisfaction. Managerial implications are discussed. Attribution theory focuses on a fundamental need that people have to explain the underlying causes of important events or outcomes (Weiner, 1986). Causal attributions are a type of general fact-based knowledge (i.e., concerns matters such as who, what, when, where, why, and how) that allows people to comprehend the meaning of an event. Given its centrality to human nature, it is therefore not surprising that fans put so much effort into identifying the reasons behind a preferred team’s victory or defeat. One need only listen to sports talk radio or read a sports blog on the day after an important game to appreciate the prevalence of such behavior among fans. Understanding how fans interpret sporting event outcomes is important to managers because it allows them to better understand the ways in which their product is being consumed. Research has consistently shown that causal attributions influence consumers’ reactions to a product or service (Folkes, 1988; Folkes, Koletsky, & Graham, 1987; Weiner, 2000). We consider two such reactions in the context of the consumption of a sporting event: satisfaction with the team’s