Coping with losses: Need unfulfillment, coping strategies and temporal well-being of sport fans

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how sport fans psychologically process and cope with the loss of one’s team and how the process is linked to temporal well-being. Grounded on need theory and Lazarus’ model of stress, need unfulfillment is introduced as a psychological threat derived from a loss, which triggers coping strategies to deal with the negative well-being effects associated with the loss. With a two-wave survey-based natural field study conducted with identified NFL team fans, the relations among need unfulfillment (of arousal, achievement and social needs), coping strategies (i.e., seeking social support, positive reinterpretation/growth, venting, denial and CORFing) and temporal well-being (i.e., self-worth and negative affect) are examined with structural equation modeling. Need unfulfillment after a loss, particularly achievement unfulfillment, was found as a meaningful antecedent of coping behavior. The five coping strategies had distinctive effects on self-worth and negative affect. Strategies to help fans effectively cope with losses are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Need unfulfillment
• coping
• temporal well-being
• sport fan
• game outcome

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We’ve dropped ‘acceptance’ from the original list, as ‘living with distress’ was not considered as an effort to diminish or cope with well-being threats; ‘turning to religion’ was dropped for its limited applicability (e.g., not applicable to those with no religion) and for concerns of overlapping with other coping strategies (cf. ‘religion might serve as a source of emotional support, as a vehicle for positive reinterpretation and growth, or as a tactic of active coping with stressor’; Carver et al., 1989, p. 270).

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Falk College Sport and Human Development Institute Seed Grant, Syracuse University.