A new study published in Scientific Reports sheds light on how witnessing an event as part of a large crowd differs from watching the event remotely. Basketball fans who watched games inside the stadium showed a stronger alignment of heart rate patterns and reported a more transformative experience compared to fans who watched remotely from a screen.

Large collective events — like public sporting matches — can be highly emotional and transformative experiences. Scientific studies have noted an interesting phenomenon whereby people who encounter this type of shared arousal demonstrate an alignment in autonomic activity, such as synchronous heart rate patterns. There is also evidence that transformative experiences can activate feelings of oneness with the group, referred to as ‘identity fusion.’

With technological advancements and an ongoing pandemic, remote events are being increasingly embraced as alternatives to crowd experiences. Researchers G. Baranowski‑Pinto and team wanted to explore whether the social effects of collective events would persist when people experience them remotely rather than in a crowd. The study authors devised an experiment to compare the effects of attending sports matches in-person versus remotely.

First, the researchers recruited 182 fans of the UConn Huskies, an intercollegiate basketball team. These participants were then assigned to either attend a game at the team’s home stadium or to watch a game remotely on a TV screen. For the in-person games, between 4 and 15 participants watched each game, among crowds of an average of 8,344 people. For the remote games, participants watched live coverage from a screen on campus, among groups of three other participants who were strangers.

For both conditions, participants wore heart rate monitors during the games, which measured their heart rate patterns as a measure of physiological arousal. The monitors also included accelerometers to measure physical activity. Before and after the game, participants completed surveys that assessed their identification with the team (i.e., identity fusion). After the game only, subjects completed a Transformativeness scale, which measured the extent they felt that the game had shaped them as a person.

The results of the study revealed that fans who attended games inside the stadium showed heart rate patterns that were more strongly and persistently coordinated — indicating greater heart rate synchrony — compared to those watching remotely. This difference was consistent throughout the games, even during the half-time, and was not due to the increased physical activity of those in the stadium.

Further, physiological synchrony was related to increased feelings of transformativeness, but only among those watching from the stadium. This suggests that when participants watching remotely did experience an alignment in heart rate patterns, the experience was less personally impactful than it was for participants in the stadium.

There was also evidence that this shared physiological experience was promoting higher group bonding. When experiencing the game among a crowd, higher synchrony led to higher reports of self-transformativeness, which in turn led to higher identity fusion.

The study authors say their findings suggest there are concrete differences between attending a collective event in-person versus remotely. Physiological measures captured these differences, which then predicted psychological differences in transformativeness and group identity fusion. “The ability of sports and other collective events to inspire and mobilize crowds seems to rely upon the emergent inter-personal dynamics that unfold among fans present in the stadium,” the researchers say, “an effect which is experienced differently by those who witness the same event remotely.”

The findings open the door to many follow-up questions. For example, the authors say it would be interesting to explore how watching a game at a sports bar compares to the larger crowd experience. They also note that further study may elucidate ways to improve remote events. “As these types of events increasingly occur remotely, a better understanding of their psycho-social effects and their underlying mechanisms may help harness their full potential to bring people together and create meaningful experiences.”

The study, “Being in a crowd bonds people via physiological synchrony”, was authored by G. Baranowski‑Pinto, V. L. S. Profeta, M. Newson, H. Whitehouse, and D. Xygalatas.

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