Abstract
Purpose: This study examined the effects of the status of belong group and favorable condition on the professional baseball fans' perception of the fairness of referees' judgement. Method: A two-factor factorial design was applied to estimate the effective of group favoritism in this study and 120 fans of Brothers Baseball Club were divided into four sections by group type (in-group and out-group) and favorable condition (favorable and unfavorable). These participants were asked to review the specific plays of game videos and responded immediately to the perception of fairness of the referee's judgement. Results: The results indicated an interaction of group type and favorable condition on the perception of fairness of the referee's judgement, instead of the main effects of group type and favorable condition. To elaborate, the perception of fairness of the referee's judgement would be higher when the judgements were favorable to the in-group and unfavorable to the out-group. In contrast, the perception of fairness of the referee's judgement would be lower when the judgements were unfavorable to the in-group and favorable to the out-group. Conclusion: The findings support that, for those fans who have a high level of team identification, their perception of fairness of referee's judgements is likely to be influenced by group favoritism. Therefore, it always depends on the group position and favorable condition for fans to interpret the fairness of the referee's judgements. This study also provides suggestions for practitioners and researchers based on our findings.