Emotional Cues and Violent Behavior: Unexpected Basketball Losses Increase Incidents of Family Violence.

This article investigates the relationship between unexpected losses by National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and increases in male-on-female in-home intimate partner violence (IPV), extending prior research that identified similar effects following unexpected losses by National Football League (NFL) teams. Using detailed crime data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) across eight U.S. counties with NBA teams, combined with sports betting market data to identify unexpected game outcomes, the study finds that upset losses by home NBA teams significantly increase IPV incidents, particularly for weekend games. The analysis reveals heterogeneity in this effect, showing that referee fatigue amplifies the impact—likely due to perceived unfairness from referee errors—and that the effect grows stronger as the NBA regular season progresses toward the playoffs. Robustness checks confirm these findings, highlighting that emotional cues from unexpected sports outcomes extend beyond football and may be influenced by game importance, timing, and fan attention, with implications for understanding triggers of family violence in broader social contexts.