Why do people suddenly ‘get into’ football during the World Cup?

Football fever is once again sweeping the globe. People’s behaviour during the World Cup is very interesting for us psychologists, as we can see many examples of the theories we use in action.

• Chris Stiff
• The Conversation

Here are five questions you might ask during the tournament – and how psychology would answer them:

1. Why do people suddenly “get into” football during the World Cup, when usually they’re not interested?

This change in attitudes has to do with a change in our social identity.

Social identities are aspects of our personality that relate in some way to our social surroundings, for example, our…

• Why do people…