Abstract
Fandoms are groups of people that form communities surrounding interest of a certain subject. Public perception of these fandoms can vary from ambivalent to hostile, and this perception can vary based on various factors including the perceived hostility of the members of the fandom in question. When a fandom has members that are particularly hostile towards people of the out-group, or particularly devoted to the subject of their fandom to the point of it being noticeable, this can be described as an intense fandom. A fandom that is more intense may be viewed in a more negative light by outsiders who are not in the in-group of the fandom. In this study, I plan to examine the intensity of various fandoms in respect to the self-esteem of the members of those fandoms. I believe that a lower level of self-esteem of the members of a fandom can lead to higher levels of intensity of the fandom that the people with low self-esteem are a part of. Additionally, I believe that the opposite will be true for those with high self-esteem, that is, a fandom that has members that have a generally high self-esteem will have less intensity. I believe that intensity in fandoms will be inversely related to self-esteem of the members of that fandom.
Introduction
The topic of fandoms is one that has gained some attention in the field of psychology, but there is still much research to be done on the subject. A fandom is a group of people that share a similarity in affinity for a public figure, topic, TV show, entertainment franchise, etc. Fandoms can gather around most topics that are in the public eye, and many fandoms form their own community, all with their own cultures. Membership in a fandom can be anything from just merely liking something that other people like, to being an active member of that fandom community, including actively participating in the discourse of that community. While there are different amounts of involvement in these fandoms, it should be noted that there are different amounts of intensity that a fandom can display. Here, intensity means the amount of arguments within a fandom and the hostility that members of a fandom show towards people that are not a member of the fandom or will even criticize the subject of the fandom’s interest. If a fandom has a higher intensity, then members of that fandom are more likely to confront those in the out-group that are not fans of the subject, or may be critics of the subject. Fandoms of a lower intensity may not be as prone to hostility towards people of the out group. It should be noted that there are different factions of people in each fandom, and each faction has different levels of intensity, which can make the study of fandoms quite complex. Because of this, it may be helpful to look at fandoms with a wider lens and try to sample the fandom as a whole so that the whole community can be well represented. The topic of fandoms is important to the study of Social Psychology because fandoms revolve around social connections between people that are fans of a certain subject. Fandoms cannot exist without their social components, because they rely on the group dynamic for discourse. Without the group dynamic of fandoms, people would not be able to band together for or against a certain subject, and thus fandoms themselves would not be able to thrive as they do in their current state.
Another facet of Social Psychology that has been heavily researched is self-esteem.
Review of literature
There is considerable prior literature on fandoms, and very considerable prior research on Self-Esteem. According to prior research, fandoms have an important component in online communities (C. Souza et. Al, 2014) . These online communities can encounter conflicts within themselves, as shown in Souza’s studies of fans of the TV show How I Met Your Mother. Other studies assert that fandoms have different motivators for members of the respective fandoms to be a part of them (Schroy et. Al, 2015). The fandoms studied by Schroy and colleagues were pretty fringe: that of Fantasy Sports, Anime, and the Furry fandom. Schroy and colleagues claim that there has been considerable study in fandoms in the area of sports fans, but not much past that (2015). In the same journal but with a different article, it is stated that fandoms can relate to a certain feeling of entitlement for the members of those fandoms (Shaw et. Al, 2015). Additionally, thanks to the internet facilitating connection between people around the world, people of different nations and different cultures can still be connected with the creators of a subject of fandom, such as a TV show (Benecchi, 2014). The current literature on fandoms shows that they have an important presence online, and those in fandoms form social groups that can actually support, affect, and be affected by their psychological well-being. There is also considerable research into the idea of self-esteem. One such article asserts that, troublingly, low self-esteem can lead to depression (Orth et. Al, 2016). The research in self-esteem suggests that self-esteem is very important for psychological well-being and mental health in general.
While all of this research has led to interesting conclusions, there is little to no research on the connection that self-esteem has to fandoms. Likewise, there is scant literature on the intensity or hostility of fandoms, and how this can relate to self-esteem. This lack of research in the area of self-esteem, fandoms, and hostility among those fandoms and within those fandoms toward other members of the fandoms and towards outsiders can be mitigated by more study into this subject. The question that I want to explore here is whether self-esteem has any effect on the intensity of a given fandom.
Rationale
I aim to examine fandoms, and the relationship that self-esteem has to the intensity of those fandoms. I’m defining intensity here as the hostility that members of fandoms show towards outsiders and members of the fandom that they are even a part of, as well as devotion that members of fandoms show towards the subject of the fandom. Many fandoms revolve around an infatuation with the subject of the fandom, leading to members of the fandom coming to the defense of the subject of that fandom seemingly without any consideration of criticism that is aimed at the subject of fandom. I want to explore the intensity of these fandoms within the context of the self-esteem of the members of these fandoms. I would like to know if self-esteem effects the intensity of fandoms, that being the hostility that people in those fandoms show towards other people, including those that disagree with their views on the subject of the fandom. These issues are related to the issue of fandoms at large because previous literature has shown that fandoms themselves do have infighting. I have also observed that fandoms can have negative reputations in the public eye, that is people that are not members of the fandom, due to the perceived intensity of the fandom as seen by outsiders. I feel it is important that we understand how these fandoms get to this point, so outsiders could possibly understand how the fandom ticks, and maybe be able to have better discourse with members of the fandoms.
I hypothesize that lower levels of self-esteem will lead to higher intensity in fandoms, on an individual basis. By this, I also hypothesize that fandoms with members that tend to lean towards higher levels of self-esteem in general will have a lower total intensity, and fandoms with people that have lower levels of self-esteem in general will have a higher total intensity. If my hypothesis is confirmed, then the data should show that fandoms that are perceived as having high levels of intensity will have low levels of self-esteem as reported by members of the fandom, and vice-versa. If my hypothesis is disconfirmed, then one of two options would be found: either fandoms with higher intensity would have high self-esteem as reported by members of the fandom, or there will be no detectable relationship between self-esteem of members of a fandom and the intensity of the fandom as a whole.
Method and Design
Previous literature has shown that the most effective way to study fandoms is through the use of surveys. These surveys can be distributed online or in person. Online distribution of surveys is simple: one must simply find websites, forums, or online communities that revolve around the fandoms in question. The survey can then be sent to willing members of that fandom to fill out. Other studies in the past have gone farther and even interviewed willing members of the fandom to gain further insight into the mindset of the members of that fandom. In order to collect data in person, one could travel to gatherings of members of a specific fandom, such as conventions. Nationwide, there are always conventions happening for various fandom communities, and while there a researcher could seek out members of the fandom that are willing to answer the survey.
In order to test my hypothesis, I would focus on using online surveys rather than in-person surveys. There are a few reasons for this. Mainly, I believe that online surveys have a greater reach than in-person surveys just due to the sheer scale of internet communities. Due to the nature of the internet and online communities, these online forums have much higher memberships and fan turnout than in-person conventions do. Plus, online communities tend to have ‘regulars’ that consistently visit the community, and they have a more or less permanent presence on the website that hosts the online community. Conventions, on the other hand, are by nature temporary, so it not be feasible to conduct follow-ups with the same subjects, if the study required. With online communities, a follow-up study would be far more feasible, because people are easier to contact online given that they do not go into specific measures to change their online identity. So, I would create separate surveys to distribute online. The first thing I would need to do is determine what fandoms I want to study. In order to do this, I would reach out to the community at large. I could go onto websites like Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter and send out surveys to determine what fandoms the public perceives as the most intense. I would not create a pre-made survey initially, due to the possibility of having a pre-made list of fandoms creating a bias in the minds of the respondents. Instead, I would simply pose the question “What fandoms do you think are the most intense?” In order to get accurate answers, I would need to explain my operation definition of what intensity is, and then ask the respondents what fandoms they feel fit the description for intensity. In order to get a proper reading, I would need a very large amount of respondents here, which is best facilitated by using multiple social media sites online to ask the question. Once I have I sufficient amount of preliminary responses, I will need to narrow down a certain number of fandoms to study specifically going further. I don’t plan to study a very large amount of fandoms in the full study itself, mainly due to the sheer amount of respondents needed in each stage of the study. Instead, I would choose something like the top 5 fandoms as reported by the general online public as being the most intense. I would choose these top 5 fandoms by using my first survey. This first survey would consist of a list of fandoms that were suggested by the general public in my initial question, arranged in a list with the question “Which of these fandoms are the most intense?”. I would send this survey out, once again, onto multiple social media platforms such as Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and possibly others as dictated by the response to my initial questioning. Once I have a large enough sample of respondents, I would then use the responses to my initial survey to narrow down a list of 5 fandoms that are perceived as the most intense. I will then create a second survey, with those 5 fandoms included as a list, asking people to rank the fandoms in terms of intensity. There is of course a risk of bias to this, as members of the fandoms in question could be respondents to this survey. To combat this, I could rephrase how I ask the respondents to rank the survey: I could ask some respondents to list the fandoms that are the least intense, and I could ask others to rank the fandoms as most intense. This, like the other surveys, would require a large size of respondents.
Once I have my 5 fandoms ranked in order of intensity, I can then move on to the second stage of my study. The second stage will focus specifically on the members of the fandoms themselves. Once again, I will focus on the online communities of these fandoms. Because of the nature of online communities, my demographics of subjects will be vast. I will have basic demographic questions on the surveys aimed at members of the fandom such as Age, Sex, nationality, etc. I could use these metrics to study any possible relationships between age and self-esteem, gender and self-esteem, nationality and self-esteem, and so on. The surveys that I send to the members of the fandoms will largely ask them to self-report their levels of self-esteem. Of course, It would not be very accurate to merely ask the respondents to the survey to report how high their self-esteem is. Instead, I would use a set of questions designed to indirectly measure their self-esteem, similar to questions used in personality tests. I plan to arrange the survey as a scale. For example: I would ask the respondents to list how much they agree or disagree with certain statements such as “I feel comfortable around other people,”. The scale would be something like (1) Strongly Disagree to (5) Neither Agree nor Disagree to (10) strongly agree. I will have a few questions re-worded to flip the scale so that there is not a bias created by respondents that just choose answers at one end of a scale without reading the questions. Another way I will try to mitigate this bias is to implement questions that would only be answered correctly if the respondent is paying enough attention to the survey for their responses to be useful. I will use these responses then to try and make a conclusion.
The stimuli in my study will merely be the surveys themselves. The study will be completely voluntary, and respondents will be able to pull out at any time and refuse to answer any question that they do not want to answer. To prove or disprove my hypothesis, I will need to analyze the scaled responses to the survey. In order to carry this out, I will need to use my knowledge of statistics to perform a hypothesis test. I will compare the results of the survey aimed at the members of the fandom itself to the results of the survey asking the general public to rank the fandoms as least intense to most intense. I will need to condense the responses to my surveys aimed at the members of the fandoms into a single measure of a self-esteem score, on a number scale, similar to other established personality tests used in various psychological studies. A higher numerical score will relate to higher levels of self-esteem. As for the data from the surveys concerning the general public’s perception of the intensity of fandoms, I will merely create an intensity scale that the 5 fandoms under my study will be ranked by.
The results of my statistical analysis will determine whether my hypothesis is confirmed or disconfirmed. I will gather an average self-esteem score for each fandom, as well as median self-esteem scores, confidence intervals, and the like, so I can have a full view of the self-esteem of the fandoms and of their individual members. I will use these measures of central tendency to determine a self-esteem score for each fandom.
My hypothesis will be confirmed if I find that there is indeed a correlation between high self-esteem and low amounts of intensity, or if I find a correlation between low self-esteem and high amounts of intensity. I would of course need proper statistical power to be able to confirm or disconfirm my data, which will rely on a large enough effect size. I hope to find a large effect between self-esteem and intensity in my findings. If I do not find a significant effect between self-esteem and intensity, then my hypothesis will be essentially disconfirmed due to a lack of proper evidence.
I expect to find a statistically significant negative correlation between self-esteem and intensity in my data.
Significance and Conclusion
My proposed research will improve upon the original studies in both the areas of fandoms and self-esteem, because I plan to explore a connection between these two areas that has not been explored before. I am troubled by the findings that low self-esteem can lead to depression and other risk factors, and I feel that fandoms could be a way into detecting these risk factors that may otherwise go undetected. The findings of this research could thus be used for prevention, as a means of finding people that are at risk of depression associated with low levels of self-esteem, given that there is a significant correlation found between intensity of fandoms and self-esteem. On the other side of the issue, this could bring to the public eye the idea of fandoms in general, and allow people outside of the fandoms to better understand the social dynamics within these groups. With online communities expanding as they are, I feel that fandoms are not bound to go away any time soon. I feel that it is important to study this relatively new social form of connection, to better facilitate communication and understanding between people in these social groups, and people that are on the outside looking in.
References
Souza C., Rolim A., Magalhães J., Costa E., Fechine J., Andrade N. (2014) How a Conflict Changes the Way How People Behave on Fandoms. In: Baloian N., Burstein F., Ogata H., Santoro F., Zurita G. (eds) Collaboration and Technology. CRIWG 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8658. Springer, Cham
Benecchi, E. (2014). Online Italian fandoms of American TV shows. Transformative Works and Cultures, 19. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2015.0586
Schroy, C., Plante, C. N., Reysen, R., Roberts, S. E., & Gerbasi, K. C. (2015). Different motivations as predictors of psychological connection to fan interest and fan groups in anime, furry, and fantasy sport fandoms. The Phoenix Papers, 2(2), 148-167.
Shaw, J., Plante, C. N., & Roberts, S. E. (2015). Predictors of Fan Entitlement in Three Fandoms. The Phoenix Papers, 2(2), (203-219).
Orth, U., Robins, R. W., Meier, L. L., & Conger, R. D. (2016). Refining the vulnerability model of low self-esteem and depression: Disentangling the effects of genuine self-esteem and narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(1), 133-149. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000038
Ray, Adam & Plante, Courtney & Reysen, Stephen & Roberts, Sharon & Gerbasi, Kathleen. (2017). Psychological Needs Predict Fanship and Fandom in Anime Fans. The Phoenix Papers. 3. 56-68.