Parents who rant at kids' sporting events let ego get in the way, study says

MONDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- People who are prone to road rage are also more likely to rant and rave while watching their children play sports, says a U.S. study.

Ego defensiveness, one of the triggers of road rage, also causes "sideline rage," said researcher Jay Goldstein, a kinesiology doctoral student at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.

He observed parents at youth soccer games in suburban Washington, D.C., and concluded that parents become angry when there's an apparent challenge to their ego.

"When they perceived something that happened during the game to be personally directed at them or their child, they got angry. That's consistent with findings on road rage," Goldstein said in a prepared statement.

He also found that control-oriented parents were far more likely to take something personally and explode than autonomy-oriented parents, who take greater responsibility for their own behavior.

"In general, control-oriented people are the kind who try to 'keep up with the Joneses.' They have a harder time controlling their reactions. They more quickly become one of 'those' parents than the parents who are able to separate their ego from their kids and events on the field," Goldstein said.

But even autonomy-controlled parents can get angry due to ego-defensiveness.

"While they're more able to control it, once they react to the psychological trigger, the train has already left the station," Goldstein said.

The study was published in the June issue of Applied Social Psychology.

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