This study contributes further understanding of the way sports consumers respond to negative communication. For the sport of professional football and the National Football League (NFL), Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) being linked to the game’s repeated head trauma is a contentious and enduring issue threatening the sport. Medical experts, past players, and parents have called into question the continuation of the sport and the actions of the NFL in response to CTE (Semuels, 2019)—it is an issue that the NFL cannot ignore, and fans are forced to negotiate. In this study a quasi-experiment was used to examine the way in which consumers responded to negative communication about CTE and professional football. In examining motivated reasoning and biased processing within this context, key antecedents and mechanisms were explored. The key theoretical constructs underpinning this study are the Psychological Continuum Model (PCM), involvement, and identity.The study addressed the following research questions: (1) Do people utilize motivated reasoning and biased processing when exposed to negative information about CTE in professional football?; (2) Does motivated reasoning and biased processing vary, based on strength of psychological connection, when people are exposed to negative information about CTE in professional football?; (3) What strategies are utilized by fans in response to negative information about CTE that enables them to continue to support professional football and the NFL? (e.g., counterargument, denying message validity, discrediting the source, distorting arguments). The final study sample included 151 undergraduate students. Two message formats were utilized, a televisual and text format. Responses to the CTE information were compared among individuals at different stages of the Psychological Continuum Model (PCM, Funk & James, 2001; 2006). A series of hypotheses were testing using ANOVA statistical analysis. The results provide preliminary empirical support for the relationship between strength of psychological connection and biased processing (Funk & James, 2001; 2006; Wann & James, 2018). The Allegiance group was distinct from the other three stages in demonstrating biased processing—findings that are consistent with early theoretical expectations of the PCM (e.g., Beaton & Funk, 2008; Funk & James, 2006). Individuals in the Allegiance stage demonstrated more message elaborations, more negative thoughts, more counterargument, and less favorable attitudes towards mitigating actions in response to the CTE message stimuli. There was general agreement across all participants regarding the severity of CTE, but respondents differed in their attitudes towards suggested responses to CTE. The appraisal of the proposed mitigating action, rather than the appraisal of the health threat, appeared to have elicited cognitive dissonance amongst individuals with high psychological connection. Thought-listing responses provided information about the nature of the counterarguments utilized by respondents, and in turn the strategies that enable them to justify the unaltered continuation of professional football. Collectively, the results provide a conceptual model for future testing and for adaptation to other contexts.
