Visualizing analysis of research on emotional solidarity related to sports studies outside of Japan

Abstract

  In recent years, with the decline of human relationships in Japanese society, the emotional solidarity generated by interpersonal connections has proven to be potent in addressing this issue. However, there is a lack of study on this research topic within the field of sport sciences in Japan. Therefore, it is necessary to review the existing research on emotional solidarity outside Japan to gain insights into this topic. Thus, the purpose of this study is to visually scrutinize articles related to emotional solidarity in sports by employing visualization analysis software, CiteSpace. We identified 82 articles published before December 31, 2023, from the Web of Science core database using the following keyword combinations: (1) emotional solidarity and sport^*, (2) emotional solidarity and leisure, or (3) emotional solidarity and physical activity. With these 82 articles, we utilized CiteSpace to examine the temporal and spatial structure of relevant studies, including research collaboration, keywords, and trends. The results revealed that (a) research collaborations were primarily led by the U.S. with limited international interactions, (b) seven key clusters were identified, namely economic benefits, revisit intentions, host attitudes, national symbols, artificial intelligence, community benefit, and identification, (c) the development of emotional solidarity scales was crucial for the transition from qualitative to quantitative approaches, and (d) studies on emotional solidarity related to sports were predominantly cited in tourism, sociology, leisure, and sports science journals. In light of these findings, we recommend that future research on emotional solidarity should focus on interdisciplinary knowledge in the field of sport sciences.