Volume 10 Number 2 1997
One of the biggest problems of professional demarcation in academia is the reluctance of, for example, sociologists to listen to psychologists and vice versa. So Kerr's analysis of football hooliganism using the novel theory of reversal (Apter, The Experience of Motivation: the Theory of Psychological Reversals, Academic Press, 1982) is a welcome response to the sociological arguments about the nature of football hooliganism put forward by the figurationalists and others. Put simply, Kerr argues that for the hooligan, the hooliganism is fun, and it is this fun factor that Kerr explores using the idea of reversal theory.
If the book has a weakness, it is the tendency to retreat into psychological jargon, which makes much of the powerful argument indecipherable to the casual sociologist reader. Sentences such as "The term parapathic emotion is used when a person perceives the emotion associated with a particular event within a paratelic protective frame" (p. 29) make the going hard. This is not a text for sociology students; however, for their teachers, and for researchers looking at social deviancy, the concepts behind the reversal theory argument are well rehearsed by Kerr, if a little obtuse.
Essentially, reversal theory breaks with conventional wisdom in psychology by suggesting "The motive or motives underlying a person's behaviour may be different at different times" (p. 16). Hence, emotionally, there are a number of `metamotivational states' that one can be in, a series of bipolars through which a person can be `reversed' due to external factors, frustration and satiation. For instance, one can have too much of a good thing and suddenly `reverse' and dislike the thing one originally liked. Reversal theory attempts to explain why a person can behave in a similar manner on two occasions but have two opposing metamotives for doing so.
Kerr goes on to explain that there are four sets of metamotivational states: telic-paratelic (goal seeking behaviour and its opposite), conformity-negativism, mastery-sympathy, and autic-alloic (concern with oneself against concern for others). However, it is also postulated that one does not flip between the two states within a pair randomly. Reversal theory attempts to cover the idea of personality by indicating that some individuals have a tendency to spend more time in one metamotivational state than another; hence, these people can be categorised as paratelic dominant, conformist dominant etc.
The crucial point in Kerr's argument for reversal theory is how these states are felt through the emotions they create when combined with the level of the person's arousal, and what is called the hedonic tone (the pleasantness of the feeling). Hence, to be relaxed is to be in the telic state with low arousal and a high hedonic tone. It is the combination of these metamotivational states and the feelings they create that are essential, according to Kerr, in explaining and understanding the motivation behind football hooligans and their behaviour.
Hooliganism, for football hooligans, is fun. Kerr suggests the football hooligan is paratelic dominant, and hence when there are "discrepancies between preferred and actual levels of felt arousal in the paratelic state (as a result of being frequently bored)" (p. 43-44) his behaviour leads to hooliganism as a means of compensation. In other words, Kerr suggests there is a particular reversal theory profile (paratelic dominant) which lends itself to the search for excitement through dangerous and delinquent behaviour. There is no real difference in Kerr's eyes between the bungee jumper and the football hooligan, a point he stresses a number of times. This emphasis on the quest for excitement draws parallels, of course, with figurationalism and mimetic emotions (Elias and Dunning, The Quest for Excitement, Blackwell, 1986), one which Kerr mentions but does not explore.
The reason why some paratelic dominant people become football hooligans is not clearly explained. At one point Kerr seems to suggest hooligans are not proper fans and that the football is contingent to their lifestyle, yet this ignores the powerful relationship between masculine sport, masculine identity and parochial affiliation which seems to be central to any discussion of why hooliganism occurs at football in such a way. Football hooligans do not affiliate and identify with a pub, or a rugby club, or a political party, or a DIY store, but with a football team. Although Kerr explores some of the cultural forms of fan/hooligan culture such as crowd movement, police escorts, team empathy and clothing, this is merely a fortiori description, as opposed to an a priori explanation of what it is about football that creates this behaviour. Is it because football is so boring and the expectation so high, that the hooligans seek compensation for their paratelically dominant metamotivational state? Kerr, as a football fan himself, may not be best placed to explore that hypothesis, and the question is not answered.
The role of leaders in football hooliganism is an area where reversal theory is best placed as an explanatory device. These leaders are described by Kerr as being telically and autically dominant. Kerr explores the relationship between hooliganism and far right activism, and finds that while the leaders of the gangs are motivated by fascist ideology, the average football hooligan is just interested in the fighting and the deviant behaviour. Crucially, affiliation with a deviant group such as a far right wing party provides a pleasant feeling for the paratelic-negativistic dominant football hooligan, who gets a `kick' out of behaving badly. But fascist ideology is not the only site of the `superthug' or gang leader. Kerr goes on to narrate a picture of the football superthug as a souped-up trainspotter who plans meticulously, collects newspaper cuttings, and often has a career and homelife far removed from the stereotypical media image of the working class skinhead. For the superthug, football hooliganism is an addiction, the only way the individual can achieve pleasant hedonic feelings, and Kerr suggests society has to treat these hooligans like all addicts and help them kick the habit - not lock them up.
Kerr concludes that arousal seeking serves an important function in society, and "it may be that some forms of deviant behaviour are left alone" (p. 121). Mirroring Eliasian ideas on the civilising process and the need to express emotion, Kerr feels that societal evolution has reduced the outlets for emotions that he feels "played an important role in biological, cultural and personal evolution" (p. 120). So we are the victims of our own past, according to Kerr, and the football hooligan is the hunter-gatherer with nothing to hunt, the warrior with no-one to kill, the explorer with no slaves to capture. To give the football hooligan something to do, Kerr ends with some unusual suggestions: "perhaps the streets of Leeds and Manchester could be blocked off and people could be allowed to run before the bulls as they do at Pamplona... perhaps... race tracks should have periods of free access for young people to race cars or motor bikes against each other" (p. 121).
Reversal theory is an interesting (though untestable) theory that allows an exploration of behaviour through the self and the external, social factors that impinge on that self. In its application to football hooliganism, however, Kerr has not given enough emphasis to the social factors that relate to the reversal of the hypothesised metamotivational states. Psychology as a subject is problematic in that it champions the cause of scientist of validity and hypothetico-deductive logic, while at the same time it produces non-sequiturs that explain themselves through recourse to that explanation. Reversal theory is a classic example of this a priori reasoning, with no evidence for it other than itself.
Hence, it remains an interesting analytical device, but needs strengthening by an exploration of social factors such as the role of masculinity (football hooligans are predominantly male) and expressions of masculine identity such as violence and loyalty, the role of identity (although Kerr dismisses class as a factor in hooliganism he should not ignore the overwhelming evidence that football hooligans are white) and the role of social networks of belonging (parochial affiliation, hooligan gangs as `communities'). This over-reliance on an untestable, self-referential theory is what leads Kerr to the simplistic and naturalistic explanation of football hooliganism, which almost justifies the oppressive behaviour of white man. On its own, reversal theory is considerably weaker as an explanatory device than sociological theories, but combined with them it may well be stronger than either.
Karl Spracklen