Sport Fans: Evaluating the Consistency between Implicit and Explicit Attitudes toward Favorite and Rival Teams

Abstract

Sport fans often foster very positive attitudes for their favorite teams and less favorable attitudes for opponents. The current research was designed to evaluate the consistency that might exist between implicit and explicit measures of those attitudes. College students (24 women, 16 men) performed a version of the Implicit Association Test related to their favorite and rival teams. Participants also reported their attitudes for these teams explicitly, via self-report instruments. When responding to the IAT, participants' responses were faster when they paired positive words with concepts related to favorite teams and negative words with rival teams, indicating implicit favorability for favorite teams and implicit negativity for rival teams. This pattern of implicit favorability and negativity was consistent with what participants reported explicitly via self-report. The importance of evaluating implicit attitudes and the corresponding consistency with explicit attitudes are discussed.

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