Social Identity In Sports

724 Words3 Pages

Social identity is how an individual uses their role in a group to define who they are in life. They look at family roles, career roles, and friendship roles to identify who they are as a person. Some even use their role as a fan of a team to show who they are. When an individual relates strongly to a certain team, being a member of this group is essential. “For many people, sports fandom is an integral social identity component” (Sanderson, 2013, p. 489). Through social media, fans are divided by the in-group and out-group and act accordingly. When their in-group is attacked, their social identity is subsequently threatened. This can result in rallying, stigmatizing, victimization, intimidation, and degradation.
With social media, fans have the ability make …show more content…

“As social identity is strongly tied to group belonging, when social identity threats emerge, members feel vulnerable, and insecurity results leading to group members enhancing in-group favoritism and identification” (Sanderson, 2013, p. 492). Other strategies to combat identity threats include individual mobility, social creativity, and social competition. Individual mobility is when in-group members try to move to higher status groups. For sports fans, this could be identifying with a city team rather than a college team or being a fan for a better team because they are constantly winning. Social creativity, which is when a member finds a way to seek positive distinctiveness without changing their social position, could be seen in sports fans who compare individual players and say they have better stats