When cooler heads prevail: peacemakers in a sports riot

Male sports fans (N = 74) were asked to estimate the likelihood that they would intervene in a crowd disturbance in an attempt to stop the fighting. They also completed a battery of measures that included their attitude toward law and order, fight history, the false consensus effect, impulsivity, psychopathy, sensation seeking, anger, physical aggression and identification with their favorite team. Law and order, body mass, anger and the false consensus effect were positively related to peacemaking whereas sensation seeking was negatively related. A multiple regression analysis yielded a solution that accounted for 32.3% of the variance with anger and attitude toward law and order emerging as the best predictors.