HSTM 3355 Troy University Effects of Relative Size & Homogeneity of Sports Article Analysis I post an example and the article you need to write about below

HSTM 3355 Troy University Effects of Relative Size & Homogeneity of Sports Article Analysis I post an example and the article you need to write about below.

Your article cannot be a Book Review or conceptual article. It must include an actual research study (in which data were collected and analyzed). It can be either qualitative or quantitative in nature. Carefully read through the article posted. Then, go back through the article and write a report based upon the following:

Begin with a proper citation of the research article in correct APA 6th edition format.
Identify the study as qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods in approach.
Identify the theoretical rationale on which the research is based.
Why, according to the author(s), is the study necessary and important?
What specific theory(ies) or literature is used to support the rationale?
State the primary question(s) posed by the researcher(s).
If specific hypotheses or research questions are given, state them.
Identify the variables that the authors measured to complete the study.
How were the variables measured (i.e., what instruments and/or procedures were used)?
Identify the group (sample or population) that participated in the study.
Briefly report the results of the study, including major research findings.
Provide your opinion on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Formatting:

Your article needs to be typed: 12-pt Times New Roman font and double-spaced. Your name, course number and date should appear at the top, right-hand corner of the page.
The next line should include the title of the assignment: Article Review #1.
The APA citation should appear next, just as it would appear on a References list (should include a hanging indent if longer than one line). Make sure you are properly citing the article. Use the tutorials above. If this is not correct, I will not even grade the rest of the assignment.
The next sections of the review should come in the order above, separated by sections. Use bullets, number, and bolding to clearly mark the sections.
Make sure you are making use of the content you have been reading in the book. Article Review #1 1
Min Kim
HSTM 4445, T4 2016
3/16/16
Dwyer, B., & Yongjae, K. (2011). For love or money: Developing and validating a motivational
scale for fantasy football participation. Journal of Sport Management, 25(1), 70-83.
Approach
This study used a mixed methods approach. Qualitative research was used in the form of
a semistructured interview guide used to lead a focus group discussion. Open-ended questions
were used to elicit reasons for participating in fantasy football. A quantitative research method
was then used. From the data gathered in the focus group, a series of statements regarding the
most popular reasons were developed. From these statements, a scaled-response, web-based
survey with a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly
Agree was developed.
Theoretical Rationale
It is important for sport managers to understand what motivates fantasy sport consumers. This
information is important, as it allows marketers to provide products and services that continually
meet the needs and wants of sport consumers. Nearly 30 million people in North America
participate in some type of fantasy sport league. A large portion of these participants represent
corporate America’s most highly-coveted group of consumers. This group included Caucasian
males, ages 18-45, with Bachelor’s Degrees and an annual income of at least $78,000. Fantasy
sport is becoming an increasingly effective way to reach these valuable consumers.
Primary Question
What is the consumer motivation for fantasy sports participants?
Article Review #1 2
Variables
This study focused on and measured the validity of three participant motivations: (a)
entertainment/escape, (b) competition and (c) social interaction. These variables were measured
by study participants completing a scaled response survey where they rated their level of
agree/disagreement of 12 statements. The instrument used in the study was the Motivation Scale
for Fantasy Football Participants (MSFFP).
Population
The focus groups that were conducted included 23 Caucasian males, ages 23-35. They were
selected by their willingness to participate in the focus group and their level of involvement in
fantasy football. The final web-based survey used a sample of fantasy football participants on
ESPN.com and Yahoo.com who indicated they were at least 18 years old. Of the 1,314 people
who viewed the initial posting that solicited participation, 384 started the survey and 201
respondents completed it.
Findings
Gambling was an initial variable of the study but it was discovered early on that while gambling
was an important motivation for some fantasy football participants it was not a good predictor of
Sport-related media consumption. Participants of fantasy football are motivated by the social
interaction it provides and use it to “stay in contact and/or connect with family, friends, and
coworkers.” Competition is a large motivation and adds greatly to consumption behavior. To
improve performance, participants motivated by competition actively seek out sport statistics,
player stats and team strategy. This potentially leads to “a higher demand for NFL products and
services.”
Article Review #1 3
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article
Strengths
•
The statements developed for the Motivation Scale for Fantasy Football Participation
(MSFFP) were easy to understand and rate by participants.
•
The study had a pretty good response rate and a good sample size.
•
The theoretical basis for the study was strong, with a lot of previous research cited in
support of their study.
•
The initial focus groups encouraged open discussion to gain a vast and comprehensive
look at the motivations of fantasy football participants. The most popular statements
were cross-referenced by two independent content evaluators.
Weaknesses
•
The sample was somewhat homogenous, comprised mainly of young, highly educated
males. This could underestimate the correlations and impact generalization of the study to
other groups.
•
The sample for the focus group was somewhat limited
•
Only fantasy football was studied in this study, while there are other forms of fantasy
sports.
•
Only positive motives were included in this study, and constraints were not.
Journal of Sport Management, 2020, 34, 103-119
https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2019-0055
© 2020 Human Kinetics, Inc.
ARTICLE
Effects of Relative Size and Homogeneity of Sports Fan
Community on Potential Fans’ Support Intentions
Akira Asada
Yong Jae Ko
Wonseok (Eric) Jang
Texas Tech University
University of Florida
Sungkyunkwan University
The purpose of the current study was to examine how two key characteristics of sports fan communities—relative size and homogeneity
(behavioral similarity among fans)—influence potential fans’ perceptions and intentions to support the team. Study 1 showed that
relative size and homogeneity created a two-way interaction effect on potential fans’ support intentions, such that the low-homogeneity
fan community resulted in greater support intentions in the minority condition, whereas the high-homogeneity fan community resulted
in greater support intentions in the majority condition. Study 2 revealed a boundary condition of this interaction effect: The interaction
effect disappeared when potential fans had extremely low levels of involvement with watching the sport. Study 3 showed that potential
fans’ perceptions regarding similarity to fans and social pressure mediated the effect of relative size on their support intentions.
Keywords: brand community, group perception, self-categorization, social influence, socialization
In the field of sport management, researchers have examined
the process of becoming a sports fan within the realm of sport
socialization research (Funk & James, 2001, 2004; James, 2001;
McPherson, 1976; Melnick & Wann, 2004, 2011). Sport socialization refers to the process by which individuals learn team-specific
values, symbols, and behaviors shared among fans (Wann, Melnick,
Russell, & Pease, 2001). Throughout the process of sport socialization, people form psychological connections to the team and
engage in various consumption behaviors, such as attending games,
purchasing merchandise, and joining fan groups (Funk & James,
2001, 2004; Katz & Heere, 2015). Thus, to expand their fan bases,
sports teams should approach potential fans and help them initiate
their sport socialization.
Previous researchers have shown that people initiate their sport
socialization by considering others’ opinions and behaviors, hoping to maintain favorable relationships with them and fit into the
social environment (Funk & James, 2001). For example, people
may start supporting a sports team because their family members
or peers support the team as well. Those who influence one’s
sport socialization are called socializing agents, and they include
families, friends, schools, and communities (McPherson, 1976;
Melnick & Wann, 2004, 2011; Parry, Jones, & Wann, 2014;
Theodorakis & Wann, 2008). To understand how and why people
start supporting a sports team, it is crucial to examine how these
socializing agents influence people’s cognitions, affect, and behaviors at the initial stage of sport socialization.
Although researchers have examined how family members and
friends influence people’s sports consumption behaviors in the
domain of word-of-mouth research (e.g., Asada & Ko, 2016), little
research has investigated how other socializing agents, such as
communities, influence people’s decision making. Funk and James
Asada is with the Department of Kinesiology & Sport Management, College of Arts
& Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA. Ko is with the Department
of Sport Management, College of Health and Human Performance, University of
Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA. Jang is with the Sport Communication, College of
Sport Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon-si, Republic of Korea. Asada
(akira.asada@ttu.edu) is corresponding author.
(2001) stated “the emphasis a community places on sport or supporting the ‘home team’ could influence an individual’s awareness of
sport” (p. 126). Although this explanation is intuitively plausible,
some questions remain. Where does this “emphasis” come from?
How exactly does this emphasis influence people’s decision making?
Traditionally, people supported their local teams, and the
teams became symbolic representations of their local communities.
Supporting a local team was part of the social norms shared by the
community residents. However, significant societal changes, such
as globalization and the introduction of new technology, have
altered such traditional relationships between sports teams and their
local communities (Lewis, 2001). People today choose which team
they support regardless of the physical distance between their own
resident areas and the team’s hometown (Collins, Heere, Shapiro,
Ridinger, & Wear, 2016; Foster & Hyatt, 2008). Consequently,
sports teams do not necessarily represent their local communities
any more. Some teams maintain their status as symbolic representations of their local communities, whereas other teams hardly
represent their local communities.
Therefore, it should not be assumed that every community
influences its residents’ sport socialization in the same manner.
For a systematic understanding of a community’s role in sport
socialization, it is necessary to carefully examine specific aspects
of a community that influence residents’ cognitions and behaviors
during sport socialization. Specifically, drawing on a social identity
approach, we identified two factors characterizing sports fan communities: relative size and homogeneity. Accordingly, the purpose of
the current study was to examine how the relative size and homogeneity of sports fan communities influence people’s perceptions and
behavioral intentions at the initial stage of their sport socialization.
Theoretical Background and Hypothesis
Development
Geographic Community and Fan Community
Communities can be defined based on geography or common
interests. A geographic community refers to a group of people
103
104
Asada et al.
living in the same place (e.g., neighborhood and city), whereas a
community of interest refers to a group of people who share a
common interest and passion (e.g., hobby club and religious group;
Obst, Zinkiewicz, & Smith, 2002). For a sports team, the geographic community is formed by people living in a city or town
where the team hosts home games, whereas the community of
interest is formed by the team’s fans who share values, passion,
and norms in supporting the team. The latter community is often
called a fan community (Hedlund, 2014; Underwood, Bond, &
Baer, 2001). Sports fan communities can be developed without
geographic constraints, but sports teams often establish their largest
fan community within their geographic community by hosting
home games and treating local residents as primary customers.
When previous researchers have discussed a community as a
socializing agent, they usually have meant a geographic community
(McPherson, 1976; Melnick & Wann, 2004, 2011; Parry et al.,
2014). A geographic community includes both fans and nonfans of
a local team, and when a geographic community encourages people
to support the team, this influence comes from fans rather than
nonfans (Funk & James, 2001; McPherson, 1976). Thus, to understand how a community influences people’s sport socialization,
researchers should investigate how people are influenced by the
team’s local fan community. Accordingly, in the current research,
we have focused on sports teams’ fan communities that exist within
the teams’ geographic communities.
Theoretical Approaches in Sport Socialization
Research
In sport management, previous researchers have established two
major theoretical foundations to explain socialization of sports
fans. First, a social learning approach posits that people learn about
their social roles through the observation of and interaction with
others (Bandura, 1977). For example, McPherson (1976) proposed
that people observe their role models, such as their families and
friends, to learn how they should think and behave as sports
consumers. The social learning approach has also been adopted
in more recent research, in which researchers identified key
socializing agents and examined to what extent the socializing
agents influence one’s sport socialization (e.g., Melnick & Wann,
2004, 2011; Parry et al., 2014).
Second, the researchers have examined how and why people
initiate and sustain their process of sport socialization based on a
social identity approach, which refers to social identity theory and
self-categorization theory (Hornsey, 2008). The social identity
approach assumes that part of individuals’ sense of self is derived
from their membership in a social group (i.e., social identity; Tajfel,
2010). At any given time, a certain social identity becomes salient,
and people categorize others and themselves based on that identity
(Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). Consequently,
people view others and themselves as embodiments of activated
social groups rather than as unique individuals, and their cognitions, affect, and behaviors are influenced by a group prototype that
prescribes how group members should think, feel, and behave
(Turner et al., 1987).
This self-categorization process may encourage people to start
supporting a sports team. If people classify themselves and a team’s
fans in the same group, they would accept the fans’ shared values
and norms as part of the group’s prototype and behave in accordance with them. However, if people categorize fans into a
different group from themselves, they would think the fans’ shared
values and norms are irrelevant or even inimical to their own group.
As such, the social identity approach provides a plausible framework for examining the underlying mechanisms of how people
perceive a local team’s fan community and how this perception
influences their decisions to support the team at the initial stage of
sport socialization.
Relative Size of Sports Fan Community
According to self-categorization theory, an individual’s category
system is structured hierarchically, ranging from very abstract and
inclusive categories (e.g., human) to more specific and exclusive
categories (e.g., Yankees fan; Turner et al., 1987). A relatively
inclusive category is called a superordinate category, whereas a
relatively exclusive category is called a subordinate category. At
any given time, people activate a certain category that helps them
simplify and comprehend their social environment (Turner et al.,
1987).
Specifically, Turner et al. (1987) posited that people select a
distinct social group with high intergroup and low intragroup
differences. Similarly, Nelson and Miller (1995) proposed that
people perform self-categorization using the most distinctive features shared by the fewest people at that moment. However, if
people focused only on distinctive features, they would have to
create numerous specific categories, which require tremendous
cognitive resources. Rosch (1999) suggested that people have a
need for cognitive economy, meaning that they pursue a category
system providing the maximum amount of information with the
fewest number of categories. Therefore, people would not create
new subordinate categories if their superordinate categories already
offer useful and adequate information for simplifying that social
environment (Murphy & Lassaline, 1997).
Within a sports team’s geographic community, all of the
residents comprise a highly inclusive category, whereas the team’s
fans make up a more specific category. That is, the resident
category is a superordinate category, and the fan category is a
subordinate category. When people see the team’s fans, they can
activate either the resident or the fan category by assessing how
distinctive it is to be a fan of the team in the geographic community.
If they perceive being a fan as distinctive, they categorize the fans
into the fan category and interpret their behaviors: “They support
the team because they are fans.” By contrast, if people perceive
supporting the team as a common behavior in the community, the
fan category would not be more informative than the resident
category. Hence, people activate the resident category to interpret
the fans’ behaviors: “They support the team because they live
here.”
From this theoretical perspective, we identified the relative size
of a sports fan community as a key factor characterizing sports teams’
local communities. Relative size of a sports fan community refers to
the proportion of a sports team’s fans in a geographic community
relative to the community’s entire population (Travaglino, Abrams,
Randsley de Moura, & Yetkili, 2016). Relative size does not indicate
an absolute number of fans (Mullen, 1991). This construct is
conceptualized as dichotomous: minority or majority (Simon &
Brown, 1987).
We selected relative size as a key factor because it determines
the salience of the resident and fan categories when potential fans
of a local team classify the team’s existing fans and themselves into
a certain social group. If fans are a majority in the geographic
community, being the team’s fan would be perceived as a common
characteristic of the entire community’s residents; thus, the resident
category becomes salient. As a result, potential fans recognize
JSM Vol. 34, No. 2, 2020
Self-Categorization and Sport Socialization
supporting the team as part of the cultural norms shared by
community residents, including themselves. By contrast, if fans
are a minority in the community, being a fan would become a
distinctive feature, so the fan category becomes salient. Consequently, potential fans think that supporting a team is a normative
behavior for fans but not for other residents. Accordingly, we
developed the first hypothesis as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Potential fans of a local sports team show
greater intentions to support the team when the team’s fans
represent a majority rather than a minority of the community’s
residents.
Homogeneity of Sports Fan Community
Self-categorization helps people understand others’ attributes and
behaviors by accessing categorical information (Turner et al.,
1987). However, how much categorical information people apply
to others differs across situations (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). The
homogeneity of a category influences how much categorical
information people use for interpreting the category’s members
(Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). Homogeneity refers to the degree to
which group members are perceived to be uniform on one or more
salient characteristics (Alter & Darley, 2009). When a group shows
a high level of homogeneity, it is viewed as a coherent entity rather
than an aggregate of individuals (Leach et al., 2008). Thus, people
tend to understand others’ attributes and behaviors based on
stereotypical characteristics of the group (Hamilton & Sherman,
1996; Spencer-Rodgers, Hamilton, & Sherman, 2007). Additionally, group members may form their opinions and engage in
behaviors based on group prototypes rather than their own personal
beliefs and personalities (Tajfel, 2010).
By contrast, when a group displays low homogeneity, people
view each group member as an independent individual and pay
closer attention to group members’ personal characteristics for
understanding them rather than simply applying categorical information to them (Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). Also, in this condition, people perceive an ambiguous boundary between inside and
outside of the group; hence, the group accepts new members
relatively easily compared with highly homogeneous groups
(Fried & Holyoak, 1984; Goldstone, 1994).
Based on t…
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