Spectator Sports as Context for Examining Observers’ Agreeableness,Social Identification,and Empathy in a High-Stakes Conflict Situation

Abstract

In a high-stakes conflict or dilemma situation, observers often feel empathy for one side versus the other. Using a high-profile conflict situation in a world-renowned spectator sport (the US Open) as context, the authors of this study examined the roles of personality and social-cognitive factors, specifically agreeableness and social identification, on empathic concern towards three individuals (a focal actor or instigator, a target, and an “innocent” bystander) involved in an emotionally charged conflict situation. Results showed direct and indirect effects of agreeableness on identification with the focal actor and empathic concern towards the individuals involved in the conflict situation. Participants’ social-cognitive processes of identification with the focal actor or instigator fully mediated the effect of personality trait of agreeableness on empathic concern towards the focal actor, whereas agreeableness was directly related to empathic concern towards the target and the bystander without (full) mediation by social identification. Gender differences were found with women reporting higher empathic concern and identification towards the female focal actor and lower empathic concern towards the male target in the conflict situation, suggesting potential automatic or implicit in-group bias. Study results highlight the complex integration of personality and social-cognitive processes, including intersectionality of social identities, in the dynamics of empathic reactions during high-stakes and emotionally charged conflict situations.

Keywords

Personality traits agreeableness empathy empathic concern social identity identification conflict situation

When people encounter or witness a conflict or dilemma that involves high-stakes decisions that favor one side or another, they may feel empathy for one side versus the other. Prior studies have shown that individuals’ empathic responses could partly be understood through personality traits such as agreeableness and social identification such as in-group identity (e.g., Alkış & Temizel, 2015; Costa et al., 2014; Davis, 1983; Donavan et al., 2005). However, much remains unknown regarding how personality, social identification, and empathic responses relate to one another in conflict situations that involve more than two sides. The present study addresses this research gap using sports that has two competitors and an umpire as context. As one of the primary societal institutions, sports is influential in both reflecting as well as shaping the human condition and experience, including strong emotions and bonds or ties between self and others. Thus, sports serve as an important context in understanding the roles of personality and social-cognitive factors (e.g., agreeableness and social identification) in empathic responses during a conflict or dilemma situation.

Few would disagree that emotional experience and attachment is vital in shaping sport fan behaviors. Fans experience and embody a variety of emotions that reflect their identification and bonds or ties with teams and athletes, often openly expressing their pleasure or displeasure by cheering or booing. Sports spectators’ reactions to the athletes on the playing field are often based on their psychological connection to their favorite athlete and or team (Wann, 2006). However, while a large body of research indicates that fans’ psychological state of attachment affects their emotional responding (e.g., Kim et al., 2017), relatively little is known about the roles of general personality traits on emotional responding to different characters in a conflict situation. Thus, in the present study, we examine the roles of agreeableness and social identification of sport fans on their empathic concern to the competitors and the umpire involved in the conflict.

Agreeableness and empathic concern

Agreeableness is a personality trait most closely related to interpersonal accommodation and harmony (Graziano et al., 2007; Graziano & Tobin, 2013) and empathic concern is a vicarious emotional response elicited by others’ emotions or situations (Batson, 2009). Empathic concern is defined as the experience and/or expression of sympathy or “sorrow for others who are distressed or in need; it does not necessarily involve experiencing the same feelings as another, although it does involve feelings of concern” (Liew et al., 2011, p. 112). A large body of research on cognitive and affective factors associated with empathy and agreeableness shows that agreeableness is one of the Big Five personality traits that predict empathic concern (e.g., Caprara et al., 2012; Graziano & Eisenberg, 1997). For example, agreeableness has been linked to empathic concern in aversive situations (Finley et al., 2017).

The construct of empathy has been extensively investigated (Batson, 2009; Davis, 1983; Eisenberg, 2000; Hoffman, 2000; Maibom, 2017) and many researchers agree that empathy can be defined as “an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and which is identical or very similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel” (Eisenberg & Liew, 2009, p. 316). Empathy consists of cognitive and affective components. The cognitive component includes perspective taking, also referred to as mentalizing or Theory of Mind, which enables individuals to make appraisals, inferences, and mental representations of others’ internal thoughts and states including feelings or emotions (Lamm et al., 2007). The affective component includes empathic concern, also referred to as sympathy, where individuals respond to and share the feelings or emotions of another person (Davis, 1983; Hoffman, 2000; Mooradian et al., 2011). Empathic concern has often been studied as an affective response to others’ negative emotions or mishaps, including others’ sadness, anger, pain, or distress (e.g., Edwards et al., 2015; Liew et al., 2003; Sze et al., 2012; Stanger et al., 2017).

According to Hoffman (2000), affective empathy has implications for caring and justice because empathic concern or sympathy can serve as motivation for moral judgment and moral behavior. Similarly, Eisenberg and Fabes (1990) posited that empathy can lead to either empathic concern/sympathy or to personal distress reactions and it is empathic concern/sympathy that is more consistently related to compassionate prosocial or moral behaviors, while personal distress would lead to prosocial behaviors performed more so for self-serving or manipulative reasons. A sizable body of research has demonstrated a positive relation between empathic concern and compassionate and prosocial behavior (for a review, see Eisenberg et al., 2010). For example, experimental studies have demonstrated that the induction of compassionate feelings predict affective empathy, which then predict helping or prosocial behavior (Johnson, 2012). In line with these findings, studies have also shown that individuals who are high on the trait of agreeableness tend to show more concern and engage in prosocial behaviors or helping others even if they are strangers (e.g., Carlo et al., 2005; Finley et al., 2017; Graziano et al., 2007).

Given that sport fan reactions often involve emotions, we focus on empathic concern towards multiple characters involved in a conflict situation during a high-profile and high-stakes sports competition, particularly because few studies have considered the role of observers’ personality traits and empathic emotions in spectator sports (e.g., Kavussanu et al., 2009). Aligned with the results in the previous studies concerning the relation between agreeableness and empathic concern (e.g., Finley et al., 2017; Graziano & Tobin, 2013; Graziano et al., 2007), we tested the following hypothesis in this study:

H1: Agreeableness will influence spectators’ empathic concern towards different characters in a conflict situation.

Empathic concern and identification in spectator sports

In highly competitive spectator sports, emotionally charged conflict situations often arise among competitors, team personnel, officials, and/or fans. A spectator’s emotional experience of a conflict situation during a high-stakes competition will vary based on one’s personal characteristic and how much the individual values the event. In particular, individual differences in spectators’ empathic concern for specific individuals involved in a conflict situation might be explained by individual differences in personality traits as well as their identification or sense of connection with specific athletes in the competition.

Social identity theory has been influential in research on understanding spectators and fans’ sense of belonging and psychological connection with an athlete or a team and applied social identity theory (e.g., Lock & Heere, 2017; Wann et al., 1994). Social identity theory describes how people’s perceived self-identity derived from perceived membership in, and emotional attachment to, entities that represent personally relevant social groups (e.g., in-group members; Tajfel, 1982) will influence their behaviors in ways that help people to achieve or to maintain a positive social identity. For example, people tend to have a strong tendency to favor members from their in-groups as compared to outgroups (e.g., Ashmore et al., 2004).

Mechanisms of in-group favorability can be easily found and observed in the setting of spectator sports as a form of athlete/team identification. The strong emotional attachment between a fan and the team or with an athlete is a distinctive attribute of spectator sports culture (Dwyer et al., 2015). Team identification is considered as a fan’s emotional attachment referring to the level of psychological connection with a team (Wann, 2006). A large body of research supports this relation reporting that individuals with a high level of team identification tend to be more loyal to the team (e.g., Dwyer et al., 2015; Lock & Heere, 2017). In addition, individuals who have a high level of team identification tend to be less likely to experience negative emotions when they are facing poor performance of their favorite team (Wann et al., 1994). Even though the role of identification with a team may have been frequently studied, little is known about its association with an individual athlete as well as its association with personality traits (cf. Donavan et al., 2005).

Spectators’ identification with a team or athlete is closely connected with a sense of psychological/emotional attachment or interdependence, which are elements of a collective identity outlined by Ashmore et al. (2004). In addition, agreeableness can affect one’s emotional involvement felt with others (Finley et al., 2017), which can further influence and develop attachment and sense of interdependence (Ashmore et al., 2004). Altogether, it can be considered that an agreeable person is more likely to develop a strong and positive emotional attachment to their ideal/favorite player based on their emotional involvement towards others. This is in line with prior results that show agreeableness is positively associated with the need for affiliation and team identification (Donavan et al., 2005; Wann, 2006). Based on the theory of social identity concerning in-group and outgroup behaviors and emotions (Ashmore et al., 2004), we expect that spectators will respond with empathic concern for in-group members but less so for outgroup members in a conflict situation during a sports competition. In this regard, the degree of empathic concern may be intensified or weakened depending on their degree of identification with the people involved in the conflict. Thus, we tested two additional hypotheses in this study:

H2: Agreeableness will influence identification with an athlete.

H3: Identification with an athlete will influence empathic concern towards different characters in a conflict situation.

Present study

In this study, we explore the roles of agreeableness and identification with an athlete when a favored (or not favored) athlete becomes the focal character of an emotionally charged and high-stakes conflict situation. In the context of an individual sport competition, we identified three different characters in a conflict situation from a spectator's point of view: the focal actor or instigator, the target, and the bystander. The focal actor or instigator is defined as the athlete causing the conflict situation. As the focal person of the controversy, we were specifically interested in a spectator’s level of identification with this athlete. The target was the umpire having a conflict situation with the focal actor. Also, we identified the bystander as the opponent to the focal actor in the match but not directly involved in the conflict situation. Thus, the bystander would be an “innocent” bystander in this situation. While agreeableness, in general, can affect empathic concern towards all actors involved in the situation (Finley et al., 2017), we wanted to investigate spectators’ reaction when their agreeableness and identification with the focal actor could produce contrary emotions toward the target and bystander (Kim et al., 2017).

Among the effects on empathic concern, mixed emotions can occur towards the characters involved in a conflict situation based on whether the controversy is caused by the fan’s favored athlete or not. Previous research pointed out that counterfactual thoughts about the situation can derive complicated feelings for fans based on their attachment to a team or an athlete (Kim et al., 2017; Sato et al., 2018). For example, a fan might think a situation could have turned out better if the conflict did not occur or if their favored player acted differently, while a non-fan might be indifferent about counterfactual situations. In other words, individual differences based on agreeableness and identification level can affect a spectator’s empathic concern towards the people involved in a conflict situation. Therefore, we attempted to disentangle the direct and indirect paths from agreeableness to empathic concern.

As we had three characters involved in the conflict situation for this study, there were three endogenous variables for H1 and H3. In this, we anticipated that identification with the focal actor will positively affect empathic concern for the focal actor, but negatively affect empathic concern towards the target. For the mediation effects, we expect some spectators may exhibit stronger emotional attachment to the focal actor. Thus, spectators’ agreeableness may be inconsistently mediated—having the direct and indirect effect with different signs—by showing less empathic concern towards the conflicted target and bystander (MacKinnon et al., 2007; Zhao et al., 2010). Given this, we predicted that positive mediation effect of identification with the focal actor will occur between agreeableness and empathic concern towards the focal actor, but inconsistent mediation effect for the target and bystander.

Materials and methods

Tennis fans were recruited from Reddit forums (one of the most popular social news websites consisting of a network of online communities and user-generated content) and online community websites related to tennis. We collected and recorded data using an online survey tool. After institutional review board approval, data collection started 96 days after the incident until 141 days after the incident. Of the 440 contacts, 217 consented to participate in the survey study (49.3% response rate). A total of 205 participants completed the survey without missing data for the main variables. The average age was 59.05 years (SD = 17.35, ranging from 18 to 98 years) with 132 men and 41 women (32 did not indicate gender). Descriptive statistics of the participant responses are reported in Table 1 for the replicability of the covariance structure analysis.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of participants.

	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.	9.	10.	11.
Agreeableness	1
Identification 1	.25*	1
Identification 2	.25*	.88*	1
Identification 3	.22*	.84*	.91*	1
Identification 4	.20*	.82*	.85*	.90*	1
Empathic concern <Williams> 1	.17*	.71*	.70*	.69*	.63*	1
Empathic concern <Williams> 2	.19*	.61*	.65*	.64*	.58*	.84*	1
Empathic concern <Umpire> 1	.04	−.48*	−.44*	−.41*	−.43*	−.44*	−.37*	1
Empathic concern <Umpire> 2	.02	−.48*	−.42*	−.39*	−.43*	−.38*	−.31*	.84*	1
Empathic concern <Osaka> 1	.14*	−.08	−.07	−.06	−.12	−.09	−.03	.47*	.40*	1
Empathic concern <Osaka> 2	.21*	−.02	−.03	−.01	−.08	−.02	.03	.44*	.49*	.78*	1
Mean	29.15	2.12	2.09	1.92	1.82	2.6	2.66	3.39	3.14	4.05	3.74
SD	6.09	1.31	1.31	1.21	1.16	1.42	1.40	1.39	1.37	1.18	1.21
Skewness	−0.54	0.94	1.06	1.28	1.45	0.30	0.24	−0.49	−0.36	−1.23	−0.84
Kurtosis	0.28	−0.30	−0.03	0.65	1.25	−1.35	−1.34	−1.04	−1.17	0.57	−0.24

Note: *p-values significant at alpha level of .05.

Measures

We investigated tennis fans’ responses towards the most recent major tennis competition at the time of the study (2018 US Open final). In this match, Naomi Osaka defeated Serena Williams after a controversial moment where Serena Williams had an outburst towards the umpire accusing her of cheating. There were three code violations for: (1) receiving coaching, which initiated the incident; (2) breaking her racket; and (3) calling the umpire a “thief”. In this conflict situation, Serena Williams and the umpire were identified as the focal actor and target, respectively, of a controversy, and Naomi Osaka was identified as the bystander opponent.

We examined agreeableness, identification with athlete, and empathic concern towards the three different people involved in a tennis match conflict. Agreeableness scores were derived from the 10-item agreeableness subscale from the 50-item International Personality Item Pool version of the Big Five Markers (Goldberg, 1999). In accordance with the instructions of the scale developers and based on the additive and subtractive nature of the scale, we maintained the original form and calculation method of the scale (Buchanan et al., 2005).

Athlete identification was measured by the four-item scale developed by James and Ross (2002). The team name in the items was substituted with the particular athlete of this study (see Table 2). Empathic concern for each actor in the conflict situation (i.e., Serena Williams; umpire; Naomi Osaka) was measured using items developed by Finley et al. (2017).

Table 2.

Psychometric properties of the measurement model.

							Φ
Constructs and items	Λ	SE	Ρ	AVE	AGR	AID	ECS	ECR	ECN
Agreeableness† (AGR)					–
Athlete Identification (AID)			.96	.87	.24*	[.93]
Serena Williams is my favorite athlete	.90*	.02
I consider myself a loyal fan of Serena Williams.	.95*	.01
Supporting Serena Williams is very important to me.	.96*	.01
I want others to know that Serena Williams is my favorite athlete.	.92*	.01
Empathic concern <Williams> (ECS)			.91	.84	.19*	.76*	[.92]
How much empathy do you feel for the situation/person depicted in the picture?	.96*	.02
How much concern do you feel for the situation/person depicted in the picture?	.87*	.02
Empathic concern <Umpire> (ECR)			.92	.84	.03	−.49*	−.46	[.92]
How much empathy do you feel for the situation/person depicted in the picture?	.92*	.03
How much concern do you feel for the situation/person depicted in the picture?	.92*	.03
Empathic concern <Osaka> (ECN)			.88	.79	.21*	−.05*	−.03	.54*	[.89]
How much empathy do you feel for the situation/person depicted in the picture?	.82*	.04
How much concern do you feel for the situation/person depicted in the picture?	.95*	.04

Note. λ = factor loadings; ρ = composite reliability; Φ = factor correlations. Square root of AVE in diagonal of correlation matrix. †Reliability (Cronbach’s α) of the summated score of Agreeableness was .78 and the original 50-item International Personality Item Pool is available at https://ipip.ori.org/New_IPIP-50-item-scale.htm. *ps < .01.

In the survey, the participants viewed a picture that captured the controversial moment where Serena Williams had an outburst towards the umpire accusing her of cheating. Only participants aware of the incident were asked to complete the survey. The participants were then asked to report on their empathic concern at that moment while viewing the picture of each person involved in the conflict situation. All items were measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Consistent with the previous studies, all scales were reliable including the summated scale (see Table 2).

Statistics and data analysis

Prior to examining the hypothesized relations, we assessed the normality of the data, the psychometric properties of the scales, and the mean differences of empathic concern between demographic groups. Confirmatory factor analysis was implemented to evaluate the measurement model. Composite reliability coefficients, average variance extracted (AVE) values, and square root of AVE against the multiple correlations were used to assess convergent validity and discriminant validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). To evaluate the model fit, an absolute fit index of Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and an incremental fit index of Comparative Fit Index (CFI) were used according to Hu and Bentler (1999) criteria.

Structural equation modeling was used to fit the data covariance matrix on the represented matrix. Direct paths and indirect paths were estimated to test the hypothesized relations among the variables—agreeableness, athlete identification, empathic concern towards Serena Williams, empathic concern towards the umpire, and towards Naomi Osaka. Based on the robustness and rigorousness compared to the conventional test, bootstrap tests were used to test mediation effects (Zhao et al., 2010). Bias-corrected percentile intervals are reported in the bootstrap results. All analyses were conducted using Mplus 7.3 (Muthén & Muthén, 2014) at an alpha level of .05.

Results

Following the recommendations by Finney and DiStefano (2006), maximum likelihood estimation was deemed usable as skewness and kurtosis of items were lower than 2 (see Table 1). Among the participants, women reported experiencing higher empathic concern for Serena Williams (M_women = 3.33, SD = 1.50; M_men 2.37, SD = 1.21; p < .001) while men reported experiencing higher empathic concern towards the referee (M_men = 3.53, SD = 1.20; M_women 2.79, SD = 1.40; p < .01). Women were more identified with Serena Williams (M_women = 2.72, SD = 1.50; M_men 1.70, SD = .90; p < .001). There were no significant differences in empathic concern towards Naomi Osaka and agreeableness.

The measurement model indicated an acceptable fit of the data (χ² = 89.89, df = 35, CFI = .973, SRMR = .027, RMSEA = .087). The psychometric properties and factor correlation coefficient for each construct are reported in Table 2. Factor loadings, composite reliability, and average variance extracted (AVE) values supported evidence of convergent validity. Discriminant validity was supported as square root of AVEs were larger than the absolute value of each corresponding factor correlations.

Model fit of the structural model was equivalent to the measurement model. Results of the direct paths are reported in Figure 1. All paths were significant except paths from agreeableness to empathic concern towards Serena Williams and athlete identification to empathic concern towards Naomi Osaka. Results of the indirect paths and bootstrap estimates are reported in Table 3.

Figure 1.

Path analysis results of athlete-umpire conflict situation. Note. Dotted lines denote nonsignificant paths. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Table 3.

Mediation effect of identification with the focal actor between agreeableness and empathic concern towards the different actors.

Dependent variables and effects	Standardized	Unstandardized	BC interval
Empathic concern <Williams>
Total effect	.19**	.04**	(.07, .29)
Indirect effect	.18***	.04***	(.12, .26)
Direct effect	.01	.001	(−.10, .07)
Empathic concern <Umpire>
Total effect	.03	.01	(−.09, .16)
Indirect effect	−.13***	−.03**	(−.20, −.08)
Direct effect	.16*	.03*	(.05, .29)
Empathic concern <Osaka>
Total effect	.21**	.03**	(.07, .33)
Indirect effect	.03	−.01	(−.07, .01)
Direct effect	.24**	.04**	(.09, .37)

Note. Reported BC Intervals are the bias corrected 95% confidence interval of standardized estimates resulting from bootstrap analysis. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Discussion and conclusions

In this study, we utilized a naturalistic high-stakes conflict or dilemma to examine the relations between observers’ agreeableness, identification with the focal actor or instigator, and empathic concern towards the different participants in the situation. By purposively defining the three different individuals—the focal actor or instigator, the target, and the “innocent” bystander—and using a real-world case as a context for investigation, we tested a path model where the personality trait of agreeableness has direct and indirect effects on empathic concern for each of the three different individuals through the social-cognitive factor of identification as the mediator. Results showed that all paths were significant, except for the direct effect of agreeableness on empathic concern towards the focal actor, the direct effect of identification with the focal actor on empathic concern towards the bystander, and the indirect effect of agreeableness on empathic concern towards the bystander via identification. These findings broadly corroborate the pattern of results from prior research on the relation between the personality trait of agreeableness and empathic concern (e.g., Finley et al., 2017; Graziano et al., 2007; Graziano & Tobin, 2013).

While we used the US Open as a specific context to examine observers’ empathic reactions, the emotions evoked are not uncommon and could represent the emotions and reactions observed across many competitive or conflictual situations where there is an upset between participants or a protest over a decision from an authority figure. In the context of spectator sports, social-cognitive factors such as fans’ identification with the competitors can shape their emotional responses and emotion-related behaviors. In this situation, the personality trait of agreeableness can predict observers’ or spectators’ empathic concern. Our findings show that there were significant direct effects of agreeableness on empathic concern for the target and bystander, but not focal actor or instigator. Specifically, the pathway for the bystander had the largest effect size so that spectators high on agreeableness tended to report feeling high levels of empathic concern with the “innocent” bystander and with the target (in this case, an official or authority figure designated to enforce rules and preside over games or matches from a neutral perspective), but not for the focal character or instigator of the conflict.

Our results show that the personality trait of agreeableness has a direct influence on empathic reactions toward those who are neutral or innocent bystanders, but not the instigator, in a conflict situation. Social-cognitive factors such as social identification do not appear to be required in this process for observers who are high on agreeableness to experience empathic concern for those involved in a conflict situation who are neutral or are innocent bystanders. Additionally, these findings are consistent with prior research that shows that agreeableness is associated with compliance with rules or laws as well as requests or decisions made from a legitimate authority (Alkış & Temizel, 2015), particularly if observers perceived an injustice or unfairness such as a violation of societal rules and moral or ethical principles (Rechner & Smart, 2012; Sato et al., 2018).

Results also show that the personality trait of agreeableness has indirect influence on empathic concern for the focal actor or instigator and the target, but not the bystander, through the social-cognitive factor of social identification with the focal character. Using executive functioning and social-cognitive processes, spectators who highly identified with the focal character might start to shift attention from the “innocent” bystander to the target. Those who identify highly with the focal actor are likely to view the target as an opponent of the focal actor. The indirect effect via identification explained most of the total effect for the empathic concern towards the focal actor. That is, the effect of agreeableness on empathic concern towards the focal actor was fully mediated by social identification with that person. These findings are also consistent with three experiments conducted by Tarrant et al. (2009) who found that social categorization or identification with another person led to the expression of positive attitudes and empathy toward that person.

Our findings contribute novel insights for understanding empathic responding in conflict situations, highlighting the importance of social identity and identification in empathic concern for in-group and outgroup members. Those who were both high on agreeableness and highly identified with the focal character likely viewed that person as an in-group member and would be more susceptible to support that person in the conflict situation regardless of whether that person was right or wrong in the conflict situation. This finding is consistent with studies showing that individuals who are high on agreeableness are susceptible to endorse their prior commitments and those who they like or consider as part of their in-group (Alkış & Temizel 2015; Lock & Heere, 2017; Wann, 1994). Further, the individual differences found in the present study can complement or supplement work in support of social identity theory (Lock & Heere, 2017). Taking personality traits such as agreeableness into account can shed light into individual differences on social identification processes.

However, an inconsistent mediation or suppression effect was found on the path leading to empathic concern towards the target, as the mediated effect was negative while the direct effect was positive (MacKinnon et al., 2007). Specifically, positive direct effect from agreeableness to the target was stronger than the negative inconsistent mediation, while the total effect was nonsignificant. This suppression effect may have been influenced by spectator's mixed emotions about the conflict situation, similar to the findings from Kim et al. (2017). Kim et al. provided evidence of mixed emotions that sport consumers can feel multiple emotions simultaneously, such as experiencing both joy and anxiety while watching a sport game. In the present investigation, even though spectators high in agreeableness could feel empathic concern towards the target, the inconsistent mediation or suppression effect suggests that the processing of empathic concern might have engendered mixed emotions when combined with their identification with the focal actor.

Based on social identity theory, individuals can have multiple conflicting roles or identities such as a propensity to be agreeable and identifying with a favored athlete (Lock & Heere, 2017). While Kim et al. (2017) found that participants reported more mixed emotions while observing or watching a conflicting game outcome such as an upset in the game or a controversial win or loss, future studies should further study mixed emotions based on the individual differences and social categorization or identities as suggested by the results of the present study. Our findings call attention for the need for further research on the role of mixed emotions on bystanders or outgroup victims in conflict situations.

We particularly find the results on empathic concern towards the “innocent” bystander to be noteworthy, as only the direct path from agreeableness was significant. Our finding is consistent with findings from Graziano et al. (2007) who demonstrated that individuals who are high on the personality trait of agreeableness offered significantly more help or prosocial behavior to an outgroup victim than those low in agreeableness. By contrast, Graziano et al. (2017) found that agreeableness was unrelated to helping or prosocial behavior toward an in-group member. We also found this pattern of results where there was no direct relation between agreeableness and empathic concern towards the focal actor or instigator of the conflict. However, contrary to our hypothesis of negative effects based on in-group favorability and outgroup discrimination, social identification with the focal actor did not mediate the relation between agreeableness and empathic concern towards the bystander.

We speculate that social-cognitive processes such as social categorization and group-based bias may be more important for empathic responding toward the primary participants (focal actor and target) in a conflict and less important for the “innocent” bystander. Thus, observers or spectators will likely shift their attention away from the bystander and focus their executive attention and social-cognitive processes on the focal character or instigator and the target in the conflict situation. Those who identify highly with the focal actor are likely to view the target as an opponent of the focal actor. In this situation, observers or spectators may pit the focal actor against the target and would likely feel empathic concern for the focal actor but unlikely to feel empathic concern for the target in a conflict situation. Taken together, these findings appear consistent with the view that empathy consists of affective and cognitive components, and empathic concern towards the focal actor or the target may consist of affective and cognitive empathy while empathic concern towards the bystander may consist of primarily affective empathy (Decety & Yoder, 2016).

While gender differences were not a primary focus of this present study, we examined and found gender differences in observers’ empathic concern towards the two primary participants in the conflict situation, focal actor (a female) and the target (a male). There were also gender differences found on observers’ social identification with the focal actor. Women expressed higher empathic concern and identification towards the female focal actor and lower empathic concern towards the male target in the conflict situation, which may suggest in-group bias (e.g., Judson & Carpenter, 2005; Kwon & Armstrong, 2002). This gender difference is consistent with Rudman and Goodwin’s (2004) research where they conducted four experiments and found that women’s automatic or implicit in-group bias is significantly stronger than men’s automatic or implicit own group preference.

A possible explanation can be provided using social identity complexity framework that convergence of multiple social identities leads to more stereotypical behavioral tendencies (Brewer & Pierce, 2005; Lee et al., 2020; Roccas & Brewer, 2002). Social identity complexity may have also played a role on the hindered effect of identification on empathic concern towards a bystander. Thus, considerably more work will need to be done to determine the gender differences and social identity complexities among sport spectators regarding to the relations between individual personality and empathy responding. Furthermore, a body of research on gender differences in empathy suggests that women tend to exhibit or report experiencing greater empathy than men (e.g., Ang & Goh, 2010; Toussaint & Webb, 2005; Van der Graaff et al., 2014).

In conclusion, our study demonstrates that spectator sports could serve as an important context to understanding observers’ empathic reactions to participants in emotionally charged conflict situations. Our findings highlight the roles of observers’ personality and social-cognitive processes in their empathic responding to different participants involved in a conflict situation. Furthermore, social identities such as gender of the observer as well as the gender of the specific participants involved in a conflict situation could influence observers’ social-cognitive and empathic processes. Thus, exploration of the role of intersectionality of social identities of the observer and of the participants involved in a conflict situation in social-cognitive and empathic processes would be a fruitful direction for future research (e.g., Bailey, 2009). Additionally, while we focused on empathic concern in this study as it may be more relevant to emotionally charged situations, cognitive components of empathy (e.g., perspective or role-taking abilities) could be included in future studies to explore whether agreeableness and social identification operate similarly on emotional versus cognitive components of empathy (Hojat et al., 2002).

Footnotes

Author Biographies

Hyun-Woo Lee is an assistant professor in the Division of Sport Management at Texas A&M University. His research interests focus primarily in human emotion and fan behavior.

Sanghoon Kim is a graduate student in the Division of Sport Management at Texas A&M University. His research interests include sport consumer behavior, sport spectator and fan psychology, and technology and social media use.

Jeffrey Liew is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at Texas A&M University. Professor Liew's research expertise is on social-emotional development with an emphasis on emotion, self-regulation, and executive functions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Hyun-Woo Lee

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