Posted on 11/23/2009 11:18:31 AM PST by NativeNewYorker
Besides being a big day for eating, Thanksgiving is a big day for another American tradition: football-watching. A new working paper, however, makes this ritual a bit more ominous than turkey-stuffing.
The study, by the economists David Card at Berkeley and Gordon B. Dahl at the University of California-San Diego, looked at police reports of family violence on Sundays during the professional football season. (An earlier, free version of the study is here.)
The researchers were interested in what happened when a home team suffered an upset, which they defined as losses in games that the home team had been predicted to win by more than 3 points.
After controlling for things like location and weather, they found that upset losses by the home team were associated with higher rates of domestic violence. In fact, an upset typically led to an 8 percent increase in police reports of at-home incidents where a man attacked a female partner.
Upset losses in games involving a traditional rival had an even bigger effect on the rate of partner violence as did unexpected losses after games involving an unusual number of sacks, turnovers or penalties.
(Excerpt) Read more at economix.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I would suspect that home violence would be down any day that the majority of NFL players took the field. The thing to be worried about is their day off.
Obviously you can’t blame football for domestic violence, but I have seen men get a little too “hyper” when their team plays poorly. I was first-hand witness to a husband throwing a can of cranberry sauce at his wife one Thanksgiving when the Cowboys lost their game (I know how funny that may sound now, but at the time- it was a very awkward scene to be around for).
They didn’t say there was an overall increase in violence. Just an increase among fans of the team the unexpectedly lost.
That’s believable.
You don’t have to do any of those things to detect a statistical correlation.
I will be so glad when this POS so called newspaper is totally run out of business.....what idiots......
(See the posting a few above this just in case you're wondering if I've totally lost it. ;>)
I wonder what the correlation is between those on antidepressants and NYT readers.
Geez Louise!It’s a GAME you morons. I hate it when my hockey team loses (TB Lightning),but I’m not gonna beat anyone!
I though this was debunked several years ago.
Football Upsets Increase Domestic Violence:
I have to agree with that statement.
My girlfriend curses like a sailor and beer cans start flying when her Longhorns are losing against A&M on Thanksgiving night.
And, ironically, neither are the Lightning.
I can believe it, having experienced something like it from a boyfriend in my early 20s. If the Texas Longhorns lost, even just a regular loss, not an upset, I paid for it with verbal abuse and hostility.
Sadly, I wasted a huge amount of my youth hoping he would change.
Who’s your team? The Pens or the Broad St.Bullies?
These guys and their “study” are obvious frauds. They didn’t mention CLIMATE CHANGE even once!
She told me that if that was really true then I would have snapped a long time ago.
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