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

Abstract

In this article, we test if international football matches in Latin America can be understood as nationalistic collective rituals and if participating in them leads to prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants and to legitimize the national social systems. Based on social identity theory and literature on collective rituals, we propose that participating in collective rituals makes cognitively salient social identity over self-identity through collective emotions. Therefore, individuals are more motivated to perceive the social systems as fair and legitimate and to show outgroup derogation. In Study 1 (N = 414), interest in football was associated with national identification a week before an international tournament in Brazil, Chile, and Spain. This association was mediated by fusion of identity with the national ingroup but not by experiencing collective positive emotions. In Study 2 (N = 118), we used an experimental design and showed that nationalism moderated the effect of participating in nationalistic collective rituals on measures related to behavioral intentions. Specifically, these rituals decreased outgroup prejudice among high nationalistic participants. Collective rituals are discussed as a form of collective self-affirmation that may have reduced defensiveness and led nationalistic individuals to behave according to the predominant values within a society.