Sport fan identification in obituaries.
To assess whether sport involvement, particularly as a fan, is central enough to one's self-concept to be mentioned in obituary content, it was hypothesized that a greater proportion of men's obituaries than women's would mention the deceased individual's sport fan identification. Obituaries were randomly selected from 19 newspapers and coded for specific affiliations (e.g., military) and involvement in leisure activities (e.g., sport participation). Consistent with the hypothesis, a chi-squared analysis indicated the men's obituaries (15.2%) were significantly more likely than the women's (5.2%) to mention sport fan identification. A higher proportion of the men's obituaries (24.4%) mentioned sport participation than the women's obituaries (7.4%).
End
Christian M
CM
Department of Psychology, Xavier University, 3800 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45207, USA. end@xavier.edu
Meinert
Jeffrey L
JL
Worthman
Shaye S
SS
Mauntel
Gregory J
GJ
D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities; D008297:Male; D009524:Newspapers as Topic; D012649:Self Concept; D012933:Social Identification; D013177:Sports