Aaron C.T. Smith

But at the same time, we're also all trying to be distinctive and different.

And sport gives us a way of doing that so that within our social group, we can be important and respected.

One of the ways you do that in sport is that you lean in and you become a stronger fan and you demonstrate your interests and your values

fanaticism by going that extra step through social sacrifice and commitment to the team.

So what often happens is that some individuals find when they're seeking that sense of meaning, it's easy to lean in and to accumulate that sort of sense of respect through the experience of sport.

But there's still some uncertainties here as well.

I mean, for example, Mike, when we look at the research of individuals who get themselves into trouble at sport, whether it's through hooliganism or just yelling obscenities at officials,

You might think that they're bad apples, but the reality turns out that they're everyday people who just seem to be finding a cathartic release through sport, sometimes going over the line.

So it's an interesting revelation to discover that all of us can become diehard fans.

And maybe you've had that experience where you've gone to two different kinds of sporting events with the same person.

Maybe you go to golf or tennis and you're both quite restrained and then you go to hockey or...

No, there isn't, but what we discover is that all people have this need, this same need that's being yielded through sport.

It can be through other experiences as well, and it just depends on your sort of cultural background.

exposures as to whether that was important to you.

What we do find though is that there's a very strong correlation between early life experiences in sport and ongoing fandom.

In other words, if sport was good to you as a young person, then you tend to find that you're good to sport in the way back.

So those of us who weren't very good at sport when we were younger or at school or

in early settings don't tend to gravitate towards sport and move towards other ways of meeting those needs.

The probable reason is that testosterone amplifies a sense of tribal affiliation and aggression.

So we dig deeper as men because we're