Stereotyping among football fans in Turkey: A terror management perspective


Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology, Turkey

Approval Date: 2014

Student: ABDULKADİR KUZLAK

Supervisor: NURAY SAKALLI UĞURLU

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to understand the roots of stereotyping among Turkish football fans, which frequently turns into violent acts, through Terror Management Theory perspective. Violence and stereotyping among Turkish football fans are pervasive and causes plenty of harms to society, individuals, and property for years. It is expected that participants primed with their own death would report more negative and less positive stereotyping toward opponent team fans and less negative and more positive stereotyping toward supported team fans when compared with participants primed with dental pain. Besides, males are expected to report higher stereotyping toward opponent team fans than females due to their expected high identification with their team. It was found that males identified themselves with a football team more than females. But unexpectedly, male participants reported higher positive stereotyping towards opponent team fans than females both in MS and DP conditions. Also MS was found to affect only females and caused positive stereotyping towards opposed team fans which are the opposite of what was expected. Although MS effect was not found for many in-group evaluations, FB supporting participants reported higher positive stereotyping towards their supported team fans in MS than in DP condition. Only a marginal difference was found for out-group derogation between the scores of MS and DP conditions regarding out-group derogation. Results reveal that mortality salience partly increases stereotyping among football fans in Turkey but this effect is not valid for every team supporters and for both positive and negative stereotyping.