Stereotyping Among Football Fans: Terror Management Perspective

Fans of three big teams (Besiktas: BJK, Fenerbahce: FB, and Galatasaray: GS) in Turkey are evaluated according to how stereotypical they are by 186 participants (122 female, 64 male) from various departments of Middle East Technical University, Ankara. Participants wrote about their own death or dental pain and filled out 7-point Likert-type questionnaires about their self-esteem, current positive and negative affect, team identification and stereotyping toward football team fans. It was found that there is a significant gender difference in terms of team identification and interpersonal relations stereotyping toward FB fans. As expected, males identified themselves with a football team more than females and surprisingly females reported more interpersonal relations stereotyping toward FB fans than males. Mortality salience and dental pain conditions differed on scores of FB supporting participants for interpersonal relations stereotyping towards FB fans and participants who do not support any team made significantly less interpersonal relations stereotyping towards GS fans in MS condition than in DP condition. A marginally significant difference was found for scores of GS supporters that they reported more competence stereotyping toward FB fans in MS than in DP condition. Results reveal that mortality salience does not heavily affect the relation between team affiliation and stereotyping toward other fans.