Scape-goating means blaming someone or a group for something bad that happened, even if there’s no real evidence that they caused it. This often happens to people in important positions like politicians or business leaders (Boeker, 1992) in an effort to provide an immediate action to a larger institutional problem. In sports, researchers have studied scape-goating as well (e.g., Gamson & Scotch, 1964). For example, Heuer et al. (2011) showed that when a team does poorly and their coach or manager gets fired during the season it does not really make the team do any better.
Boeker, W. (1992). Power and managerial dismissal: Scapegoating at the top. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 400421.
Gamson, W. A., & Scotch, N. A. (1964). Scapegoating in baseball. American Journal of Sociology, 70, 6972.
Heuer, A., Mu ̈ller, C., Rubner, O., Hagemann, N., & Strauss, B. (2011). Usefulness of dismissing and changing the coach in professional soccer. PLoS One, 6(3), e17664.
