Clinical/Applied Research (CAR) Group

The Clinical/Applied Research (CAR) Group is a research group coordinated by Dr. Rick Grieve. In general, the research projects focus on aspects of men's body image, including muscle dysmorphia, and sport fan behaviors.

Research Activities

Next semester, we will be completing two projects. The first will look at stress levels in football fans at football games compared to when they are at home. The second will be a validation study of the Muscle Dysmorphia Inventory (MDI), a measure of muscle dysmorphia I am creating. We will compare scores on the MDI with scores of an existing measure of muscle dysmorphia.

Past Studies

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation of Basketball Fans (2009)

This study explored the possible link between degree of team identification, either high or low, and the use of internal and external motivation in attending sporting events. Seven different types of motivation that are thought to play a part in fans’ decisions to attend sporting events were assessed: three internal, three external, and amotivation. Two measures of team identification were also used; the Sports Spectator Identification Scale and a modified version of the Sports Motivational Scale. It was hypothesized that highly identified fans will report higher levels of internal motivations to attend games than low identified fans and that low identified fans will report higher levels of external motivations to attend games than highly identified fans. The results partially supported the hypotheses.