Aggression in the Sports World:
A Social Psychological Perspective
GV706.4 .R867 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor
I think that title happens to have some timely appeal. I mean, how many times do you have a bench-clearing brawl (White Sox-Royals game), a coach admitting to violence as a part of the game (Ozzie Guillen, Chicago White Sox) AND an internal dispute gone wrong in the dugout (your very own Brewers), ALL in the matter of a few days? And that’s just the baseball players. I almost forgot about the rivalry between the Cubs and the Brewers rearing its ugly head last week (two Cubs fans charged in beatdown of Brewers fan).
Dr. Russell, professor emeritus and leading scholar in his field, takes on sports and the supposed predisposition to aggression that comes with the territory. Instead of focusing on the players, the author tackles the fans’ issues of rowdy behavior. He examines not only the acts of hostility themselves, but also social influences like peer pressure and violence in the media as motivation to commits acts of aggression. He then delves into riots and panic situations (think of the those crazy Euro soccer fans). The book has TONS of resources for further research and would make a great source for a paper or just interesting reading.
