Publicação
Self-enhancing humor after football defeats : effects on fans’ emotion regulation and brand attachment
| Resumo: | Football fandom is characterized by intense emotional reactions, particularly following team defeats. As clubs increasingly use social media to communicate results, humorous messaging has emerged as a potential tool to diffuse negative emotions. This study investigated whether self-enhancing humor in post-defeat Instagram communication facilitates fans’ emotion regulation and strengthens brand attachment, while considering the moderating role of fan identification. Four hypotheses were tested using an experimental between-subjects design with 223 football fans, in which a single experimental factor - humor condition (self-enhancing vs. neutral) - was manipulated. The results show that self-enhancing humor significantly improved emotion regulation after a loss. Although humor alone did not directly increase brand attachment, its effect on emotional coping indirectly enhanced attachment levels. Fan identification did not moderate the relationship between humor and emotion regulation, indicating that highly and lowly identified fans benefit similarly from humorous communication. These findings highlight humor’s strategic value for clubs aiming to maintain positive fan-brand relationships after defeats. |
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| Autores principais: | Dötsch, Can-Luca Dario |
| Assunto: | Elf-enhancing humor Emotion regulation Brand attachment Fan identification Football communication Social media Humor auto-valorizador Regulação emocional Apego à marca Identificação com o clube Comunicação desportiva Redes sociais |
| Ano: | 2026 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade Católica Portuguesa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Veritati - Repositório Institucional da Universidade Católica Portuguesa |
| Resumo: | Football fandom is characterized by intense emotional reactions, particularly following team defeats. As clubs increasingly use social media to communicate results, humorous messaging has emerged as a potential tool to diffuse negative emotions. This study investigated whether self-enhancing humor in post-defeat Instagram communication facilitates fans’ emotion regulation and strengthens brand attachment, while considering the moderating role of fan identification. Four hypotheses were tested using an experimental between-subjects design with 223 football fans, in which a single experimental factor - humor condition (self-enhancing vs. neutral) - was manipulated. The results show that self-enhancing humor significantly improved emotion regulation after a loss. Although humor alone did not directly increase brand attachment, its effect on emotional coping indirectly enhanced attachment levels. Fan identification did not moderate the relationship between humor and emotion regulation, indicating that highly and lowly identified fans benefit similarly from humorous communication. These findings highlight humor’s strategic value for clubs aiming to maintain positive fan-brand relationships after defeats. |
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