Social impact of events: advancing insights on social impact scales

Research question Past research has shown that pre-event measures of social impact are higher when worded in reference to a global other such as ‘the event creates new friendships’ instead of a more precise measurement referencing the self such as ‘I create new friendships because of the event’. No research has yet investigated if this holds true both before and after events. Nor has research investigated which social impact scale relates most precisely to event support. This paper addresses both of these gaps.Research methods A pre- and post-event longitudinal research design surveyed 306 residents of Tokyo before (t = −3 months) and after (t = +4 months) the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. Participants responded to an other-referenced (OR) social impact scale followed by a self-referenced (SR) social impact scale.Results and findings In the pre-event period, we confirm the tendency for respondents to overestimate both positive and negative social impacts regardless of the scale used, although the SR results were nearly a half-point lower, on average. The findings also demonstrate that the SR scale has more predictive power to explain event support intentions, indicating that reflecting on lived experiences matters when it comes to determining resident support for events.Implications Wording social impact items in the first person is a more accurate reflection of reality to capture event impacts, particularly post-event and can better predict peoples’ support for future events.