The Impact of Sports Fanship on Person Perception

Do young people use expressed sports preferences to form impressions of others? Concentrating on previous research involving the framework of impression formation theory, this study was designed to explore the impact of expressed sports preferences on perceptions of peers. Respondents (n=332) were presented with a questionnaire depicting male and female peers in various sports tee-shirts to examine how well young people can judge others on the basis of very limited information. The findings reveal that the perceptions formed of peers are often mediated by the specific sport preference expressed by the target person. This study suggests that young people do make quick judgments of others based on sports preferences. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication Studies

Department dc:contributor.department

Communication Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Warburton, Rebekkah Boyd

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Sargent, Stephanie Lee

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Sewell, Edward H. Jr.
• Weaver, James B. III

• Sex Differences
• Impression Formation
• Sports Fanship
• Person Perception

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05162005-181537

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/32855