Consumer Misbehavior: Aggressive Behavior by Sports Fans

Aggressive behaviors by sport spectators have become a major social problem in multiple sports and numerous countries. This study examines several team-related antecedents, as well as personality traits that may be related with physical and verbal aggressive fan behaviors. Interestingly, there appears to be relatively little crossover effects of personality trait verbal aggression on actual physical aggressive behaviors. Similarly, trait physical aggression effects also do not cross over and do not appear to affect verbal aggressive behaviors. These and additional drivers of aggressive fan behavior are discussed and their theoretical and practical implications are provided.