Football supporters’ perceptions of their role in the home advantage

Football fans' views on their role in the home advantage were obtained by placing links to an internet questionnaire on supporters' websites. Altogether, 461 fans from clubs which had been promoted, relegated or unchanged in the past season of the English football leagues rated crowd support as significantly more influential than familiarity, travel, territoriality and referee bias in contributing to the home advantage. Fans felt responsible for inspiring their team to victory, took credit for distracting opponents, and believed that they could influence officials into making decisions in their team's favour. However, they did not accept personal blame for poor results. No effects for gender, age or the team's outcome in the promotion/relegation battle emerged, though season ticket holders were more extreme in their feelings of responsibility overall. Furthermore, it was suggested that mechanisms such as the perception of being superior to rivals can encourage fans to retain their allegiance to their teams, even when outcomes are disappointing. Indeed, affiliation may become so incorporated into self-identity that supporters may not have the option of abandoning their team, but instead perceive a reciprocal relationship in which both they and the team are expected to do their best to achieve success.

[1]  Galen T. Trail,et al.  The Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption: assessment of the scale's psychometric properties. , 2001 .

[2]  N. Branscombe,et al.  Influence of level of identification with a group and physiological arousal on perceived intergroup complexity. , 1995, The British journal of social psychology.

[3]  D. Wann,et al.  Sport fan aggression and anonymity: The importance of team identification , 1999 .

[4]  Stuart J. H. Biddle.  Attribution research and sport psychology , 1993 .

[5]  B. Schwartz,et al.  The Home Advantage , 1977 .

[6]  D. Zillmann,et al.  Costs and benefits of allegiance : changes in fans' self-ascribed competencies after team victory versus defeat , 1992 .

[7]  Jeffrey T. Polzer,et al.  Positive Illusions about Oneself and One's Group , 1997 .

[8]  J. Stanton.  AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF DATA COLLECTION USING THE INTERNET , 1998 .

[9]  Gordon W. Russell,et al.  Sport Fans: The Psychology and Social Impact of Spectators , 2001 .

[10]  J. Broida,et al.  An Investigation of Coaches' Perceptions of the Causes of Home Advantage , 2001, Perceptual and motor skills.

[11]  M. Shevlin,et al.  Responses of football fans to relegation of their team from the English Premier League: PTS? , 2001, Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine.

[12]  R. Pollard,et al.  Home advantage in soccer: a retrospective analysis. , 1986, Journal of sports sciences.

[13]  G. A. Agnew,et al.  Crowd effects and the home advantage. , 1994 .

[14]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health. , 1988, Psychological bulletin.

[15]  D. Wann,et al.  An Analysis of the Stability of Sport Team Identification , 1996 .

[16]  Nick Neave,et al.  Testosterone, territoriality, and the ‘home advantage’ , 2003, Physiology & Behavior.

[17]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability , 1973 .

[18]  A M Nevill,et al.  Home Advantage in Sport , 1999, Sports medicine.

[19]  Daniel L. Wann,et al.  The Positive Social and Self Concept Consequences of Sports Team Identification , 1991 .

[20]  N. Branscombe,et al.  Sports fans: Measuring degree of identification with their team. , 1993 .

[21]  R. Baumeister,et al.  The trouble with friendly faces: skilled performance with a supportive audience. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[22]  A. Mark Williams,et al.  The influence of crowd noise and experience upon refereeing decisions in football , 2002 .

[23]  R. Cialdini,et al.  Basking in Reflected Glory: Three (Football) Field Studies , 1976 .

[24]  S. Salminen.  The Effect of the Audience on the Home Advantage , 1993 .

[25]  M. Hogg,et al.  Book Review: Social identifications: A social psychology of intergroup relations and group processes , 1991 .

[26]  G. Johnson.  Internet Research Methods: A Practical Guide for the Social and Behavioural Sciences , 2003 .

[27]  Jonathon D. Brown,et al.  Evaluations of Self and Others: Self-Enhancement Biases in Social Judgments , 1986 .

[28]  Michael A. Smith,et al.  Virtual subjects: Using the Internet as an alternative source of subjects and research environment , 1997 .

[29]  Perceived Prevalence, Perceived Superiority, and Relationship Satisfaction: Most Relationships Are Good, but Ours is the Best , 1997 .

[30]  R. A. Zeller,et al.  A dome stadium: does it help the home team in the national football league? , 1989 .

[31]  Frank P. McKenna,et al.  It won't happen to me: Unrealistic optimism or illusion of control? , 1993 .

[32]  Matthew D. Shank,et al.  Fan or Fanatic: Refining a Measure of Sports Involvement , 1998 .

[33]  Roy F. Baumeister,et al.  Paradoxical effects of supportive audiences on performance under pressure: The home field disadvantage in sports championships. , 1984 .

[34]  N. Weinstein.  Unrealistic optimism about future life events , 1980 .

[35]  Bernd Strauss,et al.  The impact of supportive spectator behavior on performance in team sports. , 2002 .

[36]  Adam N. Joinson,et al.  Information Seeking on the Internet: A Study of Soccer Fans on the WWW , 2000, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[37]  D. Greer,et al.  Spectator Booing and the Home Advantage: A Study of Social Influence in the Basketball Arena , 1983 .

[38]  B. Dietz-Uhler,et al.  Identifying With Winners: A Reexamination of Sport Fans’ Tendency to BIRG1 , 2002 .

[39]  D. Wann,et al.  The Norelco Sport Fanatics Survey: Examining Behaviors of Sport Fans , 2003, Psychological reports.