Honk if you like minorities: Vuvuzela attitudes predict outgroup liking

Abstract

The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa generated extensive controversy over spectators’ use of the African vuvuzela trumpet. We asked 123 White American participants about their opinions of vuvuzelas as well as their attitudes towards a variety of racial/ethnic minority groups including immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos. We found that the less participants liked vuvuzelas, the less positively they also tended to feel toward minority groups. Furthermore, respondents who liked vuvuzelas the least were also less generally open to change. These findings suggest that the vuvuzela controversy was about more than just a plastic trumpet – it was also an episode of differential ingroup/outgroup perceptions and a lack of openness to new things.

Keywords

ingroup bias intergroup processes prejudice racial attitudes World Cup

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aberson

Healy

Romero

(2000) Ingroup bias and self-esteem: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review 4: 157–173.

Ateyo

(1979) Blood and Guts: Violence in Sports. New York: Paddington Press.

Baron

Kenny

(1986) The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 1173–1182.

BBC (2010) BBC receives 545 complaints over World Cup. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10317767 (accessed 12 September 2011).

Billiet

Eisinga

Scheepers

(1996) Ethnocentrism in low countries: A comparative perspective. New Community 22: 401–416.

Billig

(1995) Banal Nationalism. London: SAGE.

Blumer

(1958) Race prejudice as a sense of group position. The Paciﬁc Sociological Review 1: 3–7.

Bobo

Hutchings

(1996) Perceptions of racial group competition: Extending Blumer’s theory of group position to a multiracial social context. American Sociological Review 61: 951–972.

Branscombe

Wann

(1992) Role of identification with a group, arousal, categorization processes and self-esteem in sports spectator aggression. Human Relations 45: 1013–1033.

10.

Brewer

Pierce

(2005) Social identity complexity and outgroup tolerance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31: 428–437.

11.

Brown

(2000) Social Identity Theory: Past achievements, current problems and future challenges. European Journal of Social Psychology 30: 745–778.

12.

Brown Givens

Monahan

(2005) Priming mammies, jezebels, and other controlling images: An examination of the inﬂuence of mediated stereotypes on perceptions of an African American woman. Media Psychology 7: 87–106.

13.

Buhrmester

Kwang

Gosling

(2011) Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality data? Perspective on Psychological Science.

14.

Butz

(2009) National symbols as agents of psychological and social change. Political Psychology 30: 779–804.

15.

Carlston

Mae

(2007) Posing with the flag: Trait-specific effects of symbols on person perception. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43: 241–248.

16.

Celozzi

Kazelskis

Gutsch

(1981) The relationship between viewing televised violence in ice hockey and subsequent levels of personal aggression. Journal of Sport Behavior 4: 157–162.

17.

Centre for Contemporary Studies (1981) Football and the Fascists. London: CCS.

18.

CNN (2010) English football clubs ban vuvuzelas. Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/football/07/21/premier.league.vuvuzelas.arsenal/index.html (accessed 12 September 2011).

19.

Coenders

(2001) Nationalistic Attitudes and Ethnic Exclusionism in a Comparative Perspective. Nijmegen: Radboud University.

20.

Crisp

Heuston

Farr

Turner

(2007) Seeing red or feeling blue: Differentiated intergroup emotions and ingroup identification in soccer fans. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 10: 9–26.

21.

Curtis

Loy

(1978) Positional segregation in professional baseball: Replications, trend data and critical observation. International Review of Sport Sociology 13: 5–21.

22.

Daily Mail (2010) End of the vuvuzela? BBC set to remove horns from coverage. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2010/article-1286728/WORLD-CUP-2010-BBC-set-kill-vuvuzelas.html (accessed 12 November 2010).

23.

de Haan

(2010) Perspectives on African studies and development in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa Spectrum 1: 95–116.

24.

de Venanazi

(2004) Discursive and social practices in the construction of exclusion: A comparative study. Electronic Journal of Sociology. Available at: http://www.sociology.org/content/2004/tier1/venanzi.html (accessed 16 September 2010).

25.

de Venanzi

(2005) Outcasts: The social construction of exclusion. Revista Venezolana de Análisis de Coyuntura 11: 117–137.

26.

ESPN (2010) Host broadcasters to ‘filter’ noise. Available at: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/5287552/ce/us/bbc-mulls-vuvuzela-free-option-viewers?cc=5901&ver=us (accessed 12 September 2011).

27.

FIFA (2009) Vuvuzela: A symbol of South Africa. FIFA Confederations Cup South Africa 2009. Available at: http://www.fifa.com/confederationscup/news/newsid=1073689.html (accessed 13 November 2010).

28.

Foer

(2004) How Soccer Explains the World. New York: Harper Collins.

29.

Ford

(1997) Effects of stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans on person perception. Social Psychology Quarterly 60: 266–278.

30.

Goodman

Rudy

Bottoms

Aman

(1990) Children’s concerns and memory: Issues of ecological validity in the study of children’ s eyewitness testimony. In: Fivush

Hudson

(eds) Knowing and Remembering in Young Children. New York: Cambridge University Press, 249–284.

31.

Hartman

(2000) Rethinking the relationships between sport and race in American culture: Golden ghettos and contested terrain. Sociology of Sport Journal 17: 229–253.

32.

Hastorf

Cantril

(1954) They saw a game: A case study. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 49: 129–134.

33.

Hear the World (2010) World cup fans warned about risk of hearing damage from vuvuzela. Hear the World, An Initiative by Phonak. Available at: http://www.hear-the-world.com/en/press/detail/cHash/4a663904ea/back/7/read/world-cup-fans-warned-about-risk-of-hearing-damage-from-vuvuzela.html (accessed 12 November 2010).

34.

Hebdige

(1979) Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen.

35.

Horne

(1996) Kicking racism out of soccer in England and Scotland. Journal of Sports and Social Issues 20: 45–68.

36.

Jenkins

(2010) Vuvuzelas are born out of all proportion. San Francisco Gate. Available at: http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-06-08/sports/21781387_1_south-africa-vuvuzela-sour-note (accessed 14 November 2010).

37.

Jenkins

(2000) Categorization: Identity, social process and epistemology. Current Sociology 48: 7–25.

38.

Jones

(2002) The Black experience within English semiprofessional soccer. Journal of Sports and Social Issues 26: 47–65.

39.

Kim

Biocca

(1997) Telepresence via television: Two dimensions of telepresence may have different connections to memory and persuasion. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 3(2).

40.

Kinder

Sears

(1981) Prejudice and politics: Symbolic racism versus racial threats to the good life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40: 414–431.

41.

King

(2005) Cautionary notes on Whiteness and sport studies. Sociology of Sport Journal 22: 397–408.

42.

King

Leonard

Kusz

(2007) White power and sport: An introduction. Journal of Sports and Social Issues 31: 3–10.

43.

Klein

(2010) Song of the vuvuzela: Can you stand it? The New York Times. Available at: http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/song-of-the-vuvuzela-can-you-stand-it/?ref=soccer (accessed 12 November 2010).

44.

Longman

(2010) A bleating soundtrack for soccer. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/sports/soccer/09horn.html?_r=3&ref=soccer (accessed 12 November 2010).

45.

Loy

McElvogue

(1970) Racial segregation in American sport. International Review of Sport Sociology 5: 5–24.

46.

McArthur

(1981) What grabs you? The role of attention in information processing and causal attributions. In: Higgins

Herman

Zanna

(eds) Social Cognition: The Ontario Symposium. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 201–246.

47.

Miendl

Lerner

(1984) Exacerbation of extreme responses to an out-group. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47: 71–84.

48.

Mwirigi

(2010) State of African soccer and 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. African Press International. Available at: http://africanpress.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/state-of-african-soccer-and-2010-fifa-world-cup-in-south-africa (accessed 10 December 2010).

49.

Olopade

(2010) How African won the World Cup. The Washington Post. Available at: http://newamerica.net/publications/articles/2010/how_africa_won_the_world_cup_34217 (accessed 12 September 2011).

50.

Pesca

(2010) Soccer players blame mistakes on irritating vuvuzelas. NPR World Cup 2010 Blog. Available at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/showmeyourcleats/2010/06/15/127864984/vuvuzelas-louder-than-chainsaws-but-still-charming (accessed 31 August 2011).

51.

Price

Wolfers

(2007) Racial discrimination among NBA referee. NBER Working Paper 13206, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. Available at: http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/Papers/NBARace.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

52.

Quillian

(1995) Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: Population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice in Europe. American Sociological Review 60: 586–611.

53.

Schaller

(2010) New data on Tea Party sympathizers. Five Thirty Eight Politics. Available at: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/new-data-on-tea-party-sympathizers.html (accessed 24 June 2010).

54.

Schmidt

(2010) Baseball’s praised diversity is stranded at first base. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/sports/baseball/12baseball.html (accessed 10 December 2010).

55.

Scrivener

(2010) World Cup 2010: Organisers will not ban vuvuzelas. BBC Sport. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8737455.stm (accessed 31 August 2011).

56.

Shrum

Wyer

O’Guinn

(1998) The effects of television consumption on social perceptions: The use of priming procedures to investigate psychological processes. Journal of Consumer Research 24: 447–458.

57.

Sumner

(1959) Folkways. New York: Dover Press.

58.

Swanepoel

Hall

III Koekemoer

(2010) Vuvuzela – good for your team, bad for your ears. South African Medical Journal 100: 99–100.

59.

Swartz

(2010) SEC: Leave your vuvuzelas at home. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Available at: http://www.ajc.com/sports/sec-leave-your-vuvuzelas-557799.html (accessed 12 September 2011).

60.

Tajfel

(1982) Social psychology of intergroup relations. Annual Review of Psychology 33: 1–30.

61.

Tajfel

Turner

(1979) An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In: Austin

Worchel

(eds) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, 33–47.

62.

The Los Angeles Times (2010) World Cup poll: Should the vuvuzela be banned? Available at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2010/06/world-cup-poll-should-the-vuvuzela-be-banned.html (accessed 12 November 2010).

63.

Tudor

(1992) Them and us: Story and stereotype in TV World Cup coverage. European Journal of Communication 7: 391–413.

64.

Wann

(1991) The influence of identification with a group and physiological arousal on categorization processes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas.

65.

Wann

Branscombe

(1990) Die-hard and fair-weather fans: Effects of identification on BIRGing and CORFing tendencies. Journal of Sports and Social Issues 14: 103–117.

66.

Wann

Branscombe

(1993) Sports fans: Measuring degree of identification with their team. International Journal of Sport Psychology 24: 1–17.

67.

Weiner

(2010) Vuvuzelas banned from Yankee Stadium. The Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/17/vuvuzelas-banned-from-yan_n_616282.html (accessed 12 September 2011).

68.

Weisbuch-Remington

Mendes

Seery

Blascovich

(2005) The nonconscious influence of religious symbols in motivated performance situations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31: 1203–1216.