Sport Spectator Identification Scale

The Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSIS) is a seven-item self-report measure of how strongly a fan psychologically identifies with a particular sports team. Daniel Wann and Nyla Branscombe introduced it in 1993 in the International Journal of Sport Psychology, grounding it in social identity theory: a fan who identifies with a team incorporates that team into the self, so the team's successes and failures are experienced as the fan's own. The scale asks respondents, with reference to a team they name, how important it is that the team wins, how strongly they see themselves as fans, how closely they follow the team, and related questions, each rated on an eight-point Likert format and summed into a single identification score. Because team identification predicts a wide range of fan behaviors and well-being outcomes, the SSIS became the standard short instrument for measuring it and the workhorse of decades of sport fan research.