Abstract
To date, sport consumer research has almost exclusively relied on self-report measures to assess the extent to which people are psychologically engaged (i.e., flow experiences characterized by intense absorption and focused attention) and involved (i.e., the degree which watching is a central component in a person’s life) with particular sports they consume (e.g., Baker et al., 2019; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Funk & James, 2001 Kyle et al., 2008; Madrigal, 2006). However, researchers have yet to consider how self-report measures of sport viewership engagement and involvement might interface with (and be related to) biologically-based cognitive systems such as that which can be captured with brain imaging systems. Our study fills this gap in the sport consumer literature, and will offer novel insights into neural correlates of sport viewer experiences.
Thus, the purpose of our study is to develop a better understanding of the sport consumer experience using social neuroscience methodology. To this end, we are interested in addressing the question: To what extent can brain system activation predict engagement (i.e., flow) and involvement in the sport viewership experience? We propose three hypotheses: 1) that activation in the medial prefrontal cortex—a part of the brain involved in evaluative processing—will predict more engagement in a televised sport viewership experience, 2) lower left lateral prefrontal activation will predict less engagement; and finally, 3) brain activation across both nodes will add significantly to the prediction of engagement beyond demographic and other social cognitive predictors.
Data is currently being collected over a two-phase process. In the first phase, students in large classes will be invited to complete a survey questionnaire designed to assess their levels of involvement with watching the sport of hockey, using Kyle et al.’s (2007) modified involvement scale. Data from this pool of participants will be analyzed to identify viewers with low and high involvement. A total of 150 these participants will then be invited to participate in the laboratory phase of the study. In this phase, participants with high involvement (n=75) and with low involvement (n=75) will watch the same twenty five-minute video clip of a professional ice hockey game (i.e., a United Kingdom Elite Ice Hockey League game). Participants will be asked to view the clip while prefrontal activity is being monitored using a portable functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging system. After watching the clip, participants will complete a brief survey questionnaire. This questionnaire will assess psychological engagement using the flow dimension items from Madrigal’s (2008) FANDIM scale.
Imaging slices used for analyses include slices of 10 second durations, occurring: 1) in the first minute of game play (starting with puck drop), 2) at the midpoint of the period (minute 13), and 3) in t he closing minute (minute 25). Additionally, 12 event-related imaging slices will be analyzed, including five scoring chances for each team and one “momentum shift” face off in each team’s offensive end. We will examine relationships between activation in each quadrant (left/right, medial/lateral) and engagement, using level of involvement (low/high) as a moderator.
Abstract keywords: sport consumption, brain activation, fNIR, flow, involvement