Actually, according to a report published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, when we root for a team we all, in a sense, become its partners, because the team becomes an extension of our ego. Authored by psychologists Edward Hirt, of Indiana University, and Dolf Zillmann, of the University of Alabama, the article says researchers looking at fan behavior back in the 1970s and ’80s found that when the team wins, we are given to BIRGing, or “basking in reflected glory.” When it loses, we’re prone to lying low, or CORFing-that is, “cutting off reflected failure.” Their own recent study, say Hirt and Zillmann, suggests fanship can have consequences in the real world. Wars won on the playing fields of Eton, it seems, can be lost in the grandstand.
The two psychologists find that rooting for the team of your choice can be hazardous to your head. After a string of losses, for instance, fair-weather fans can CORF to their heart’s content, but true grandstand groupies are denied that option. They’re stuck with their team, in sickness and in health; it becomes part of their identity. “As a result,” the article says, “the team’s performance reflects directly upon the fan: team success is personal success, and team failure is personal failure.” For their study, the psychologists had groups of students watch televised basketball games at the Wisconsin and Indiana campuses, then evaluate the performance of teams and players. Later they were asked to provide information about their feelings of self-esteem, on the pretext that it might affect the way they rated players.
The basic finding was that after a win, mood and self-esteem measured higher; after a loss they were “significantly” lower. The actual performance of tasks wasn’t affected, although Hirt notes other studies have shown that outlook can make a difference. “Certainly,” he says, “the preponderance of evidence is that rooting can be detrimental to the extent that the team loses.” And apparently, there’s more room to go down than to go up. “On the surface,” Hirt and Zillmann write, “these findings would imply that fans are setting themselves up for a great deal of misery by committing themselves to a team.”
Now they tell us. But to be sure, there are nice things about fanship, too. In becoming part of your identity, it gives you a feeling of being part of a larger group, one that shares the joys and commiserates in the griefs. “That’s a good thing,” Hirt says. “And maybe, after all, it outweighs the risks of losing.” All right, you there in the stands sobbing in your sauerkraut: up on your feet, now, and do a wave.
