Nationalistic Collective Rituals, Intergroup Relations, and Legitimation of National Social Systems

Abstract

It was as if we had beaten a country, not just a football team… Although we had said before the game that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas war, we knew they had killed a lot of Argentine boys there, killed them like little birds. And this was revenge. (Diego Maradona, 2007) I hope that people can understand that football is a sport, not war […] The past is the past. We must not put sport in the middle of politics. Chile and Argentina are brother countries, we have to show mutual respect […] If we stoop to aggression and violence, we lose that message of respect. Sport is about trying to be healthy and having fun, not a war. (Javier Mascherano, 2015) The epigraph shows two perspectives on one of the most popular sports in Latin America and the rest of the world. In this article, we test related ideas based on literature on collective rituals, national identity, and social identity theory. Specifically, we explore if international football matches can be understood as a type of nationalistic collective ritual that can lead to prejudice toward immigrants and legitimation of national social systems. National identification, outgroup prejudice, and legitimation of national social systems According to social identity theory (Tajfel, 1974; Brown, 2000), individuals develop their individual and social identity in reference to the groups to which they belong (i.e., ingroups) pursuing a positive self-concept. The specific content of that identity is built on comparison to other groups (i.e., outgroups), which usually results in a positive ingroup evaluation regardless objective assessment. A behavioral consequence of this process is the so-called ingroup bias (Tajfel, 1969). The study of social identities can be applied to different social categories, including national identities (Staerkle et al., 2010; Vargas-Salfate, Liu & Gil de Zúñiga, 2019). In this context, based on self-categorization theory (Turner, Brown & Tajfel, 1979), we can expect that when national identification is salient, members from different ingroups in a given society will be less motivated to engage in social comparison processes within that society, and more motivated to compare themselves towards other national outgroups. This focus will result in a positive characterization of the national ingroup over the outgroups because individuals pursue a positive collective self-concept. In that

The Effects of the 2016 Copa América Centenario Victory on Social Trust, Self-Transcendent Aspirations and Evaluated Subjective Well-Being: The Role of Identity With the National Team and Collective Pride in Major Sport Events

“…This theorization explains why our results show the social effects on the fans’ trust in the categorized people within the social group “my country,” unlike what happens in other non-competitive collective rituals that favors prosocial behavior toward conspecifics and non-conspecifics. Furthermore, as previous studies related to major sport events and other types of collective rituals had pointed out, in our study, we were able to observe a clear effect on the well-being of those people who actively participated in these events ( Páez et al, 2015 ; Unanue et al, 2020 ; Vargas-Salfate et al, 2020 ). This goes in line with social identity researchers that highlight the effects that a shared social identity and the sense of “we-ness” have on health and well-being ( Khan et al, 2015b ).…”

“…On the other hand, data from a recent study conducted by Vargas-Salfate et al (2020) show that sports macro-events can favor the self-affirmation of the group, especially when victory occurs, but this does not necessarily lead to out-group derogation. In this way, although in-group identity does not imply out-group hate, when this identification with the group becomes dominant, hostility and fear within the in-group will appear, especially in a context of scarce resources and feelings of fear generated by out-group hostility ( Brewer, 2001 ).…”

“…Third, they produce a national identification effect that transcends much more than what is generated in rituals within small groups. Fourth, and finally, in these major sport events, victory or defeat favor the experience of collective emotions such as pride or shame, which condition their social, cognitive, and behavioral effects at both the collective and individual levels ( Von Scheve and Salmela, 2014 ; Sullivan and Day, 2019 ; Unanue et al, 2020 ; Vargas-Salfate et al, 2020 ).…”

“…This encourages people to acquire a sense of social identity that generates a world of “them” and “us” based on a process of social categorization. In this way, social identity is enhanced by the existence of other groups that promote a social comparison effect ( Vargas-Salfate et al, 2020 ). Thus, participation in collective events can increase social identification and identity-related behavior helping individuals to become who they are as social beings ( Khan et al, 2015a ).…”

Don’t Burn our Flag: Patriotism, Perceived Threat, and the Impact of Desecrating a National Symbol on Intergroup Attitudes

“…Thus, desecration of both an ingroup and an outgroup symbol can be considered an act of deviance, varying in degree depending on the emphasis placed on either the norm of loyalty or of nonaggression of outgroups, respectively. In a context where the norm of group loyalty and symbols are particularly valued (i.e., a context of sports competition; see Travaglino et al, 2014;Vargas-Salfate et al, 2020;von Scheve et al, 2014), being faced with an ingroup (vs. outgroup) flag being burnt by ingroup perpetrators causes an increase in ingroup bias among other ingroup members (Marinthe et al, 2020). In this set of studies, Marinthe et al showed that this increase in bias was due both to more positive evaluation of the ingroup and to devaluation of outgroups.…”