Yes, outright violence is unacceptable but if painting their faces and chanting their team’s anthem provides them with an outlet for pent up emotions, so be it. Thus, the sports fanatic is wired in such a way that as long as sports exist there will be fanatics. This is what makes fans question every referee call against their team, blame the rival team of cheating or justify their favorite team’s horrid performance on some absurd superstition such as “But I did not sit on my spot on my couch therefore my team lost” This creates strong “fandoms” where supporters of one team tend to despise the supporters of the other.Ĭognitive bias: At a simple level it refers to reinforcing my beliefs by only accepting moments that confirm my belief and rejecting those that point to the contrary. Ingroup-outgroup bias: Stems from the belief that one’s group is superior to the others. This leads to hooliganism both in the on line and off line world The line between right and wrong can get blurred as the tendency of “everyone is doing it so let me too” takes over. Individual accountability reduces and ones morals tend to take a back seat. A complete collapse of social inhibitions.ĭeindividuation: Groups provide a sense of anonymity. This makes it acceptable to hurl abuses, pass derogatory comments, physically assault the rival team supporters and in some extreme cases even harm your “favorite athlete” who let you down. Heartbreak all right, but why do these seemly normal people turn into violent angry fanatics? Most psychologists point to four key reasons.ĭisinhibition: Cheering for your favorite sports team helps you break the shackles of what is called “normal socially accepted behavior.” Your immediate emotions take over, you are in the moment and so things like self monitoring reduce drastically. It matters, deeply, and yet it doesn’t matter at all.

As a fan, you will feel actual joy or actual pain in relation to events that really don’t affect your life at all. In fact for some fans, most games end in a highly unsatisfying way. When the athlete performs well he is put on a pedestal and worshipped but when he fails to perform then “the tribe must remind him of his purpose – the reason for his existence.”The sport fanatic considers it his right to voice his dissatisfaction.Īs New York Times Magazine’s cultural editor Adam Sternbergh states “sports are never guaranteed to end happily.

In today’s society the athlete represents the warrior who is fighting for the honor of his tribe. It is this sense of belonging or acceptance that ignites the sports fanatic’s intense emotions. However, I am convinced that people fall in love with sports because it simply fulfills a basic human need - it provides a sense of belonging and acceptance. So what is it about sports that turn an average normal person into a complete irrational fool? Professor Daniel Wann, a psychologist at Murray State University in Kentucky, states that there are eight major motives for becoming a sports fan: eustress (postitive stress), escape, entertainment, economic, aesthetic, group affiliation, self-esteem, and family needs. A fan watches a sporting event knowing that there is chance they will be extremely unhappy with the final outcome, even though it will have zero impact on the trajectory of their lives (any gambling aside). The word fan was derived from the word fanatic which finds its origins in the Latin word fanaticus, meaning “insanely but divinely inspired.” The sports fan is emotional, passionate and irrational. Actually they are not wrong in calling themselves “true fans”.

Fanatical football fans