MASTER’S THESIS

Master thesis: sport spectator preferences
The fun and distraction motives are more important than the interest in a specific
sport club. Sociality and community are stronger needs than feeling with the athletes.
Patriotism and national pride do not fill arenas, spectators wish to fulfill the
need of tension and thrill. (Opaschowski, 2001, p. 88).
2.1.3 Other relevant consumer insights: Emotions, Learning, Perception
and Memory
Motivation is the process that activates the motive. The process is influenced by
cognitions and emotion referred to the situation. The cognition and emotions in
the motivation process are dependent on experiences and expectations. The
information processing perspective and the emotional perspective in consumer
behavior has a focus on memory and emotions.
The information processing consumer are expected to use their memory network
to by a product, because in this network memories are linked to feelings of product
experiences. These product experiences can be linked to a dislike or unlike
feeling which affects the buying decision. (Holbrook & Hirschmann, 1982, p. 136).
Emotional information processing perspective describes the emotion as reaction
and judgment to a external stimuli after perception. “The consumer looks for new
experiences via consumption. In this connection, the primary purpose is not to
evaluate relations between attitude, belief and the environment, but fulfill a desire
and to obtain pleasure in life” (Kotler, et al, 2009, p. 244).
Internal consumer processes like perception, learning, memory, personality and
emotion are individual circumstances, that influence the evaluation of situations.
This evaluation leads to activation of physiological erections (for e.g. goose
bumps, heart beating) and specific behavior impulses. (Gabler, 2002, p. 171)
Emotion-oriented approaches of environmental psychology reveal, that emotions
and behavioral reactions can be initiated by environmental stimuli. A sport stadium
for example can be an environmental stimuli for sport spectators. Depending
on the individual characteristics, the sport stadium can cause specific emotional
responses, activated by perceptions, and stored in memory. Sporting
events as core product can lead to internal responses, as satisfaction for hedonistic
needs, but also to short- and long-term memories, which influence further
sport spectator behavior, like repurchase of tickets and positive word-of-mouth
communications. (Ulrich, 2005)
Theoretical foundation of sport spectators and event experience page 24