PSYA3 Aggression - Evolutionary Explanations - Group Displays

Evolutionary Explanations of Aggression: Group Displays

Group Displays of Aggression and Sport AO1
Sports displays and Xenophobia
Shaw and Wong (1989) argue that mechanisms that led to suspicion of strangers (xenophobia) would have been favoured by natural selection as it would have allowed ancestors to avoid attack so would have increased their reproductive fitness

Podaliri and Balestri (1998) provide evidence for xenophobia by analysing behaviour of Italian football crowds.
-Found that views of extreme right-wing political movements such as Lega Nord were evident in the chants/banners on Italian football terraces. These displays are openly xenophobic and anti-Semitic

Group Displays and Sport AO2/3
✓: Evans and Rowe (2002): analysed police reports from 40 football matches played in Europe in 1999/2000, involving either English club sides or English National sides
- Found more evidence of xenophobia abuse + violent disorder in games involving national sides
- interpreted as club sides tend to be more ethnically diverse and therefore less likely to produce xenophobic response from foreign supporters

X: Marsh (1978) Offers alternate explanation. Claims that much violent behaviour oserves on football terraces is ordered and ritualised and that young working class males can follow an ‘alternative career structure’ in football hooliganism.

AO3: Real World Application
-In Scotland, the sectarian displays commonly observed amongst fans of Rangers (Protestants) and Celtics (Catholics) can be seen in the two Glasgow clubs
- Celtic initiated…