Can spectators' mood be manipulated and maintained in a losing game? Interaction between team identification and pre-game mood

The current study addressed two research questions. First, study 1 examined whether spectators' mood before they were exposed to a losing game (i.e., pre-game mood) influenced their mood after the game (post-game mood) and their information processing. Secondly, study 2 examined whether the influence of pre-game mood found in Study 1 was modified by personal relevance (i.e., team identification) with a sporting game. The results indicated that pre-game mood influenced participants' post-game mood and information processing system. The results of the second study also supported the hypotheses that post-game mood and spectators' information processing were influenced by pre-game mood and personal relevance (i.e., team identification). As hypothesized, two-way interaction between pre-game mood and personal relevance was found in post-game mood whereas no interaction was found in information processing. This study was able to identify a group of people who were more affected by the result of home game and who more effectively responded to mood manipulation.