My final World Cup-related post illustrates a psychological phenomenon. People like to proclaim their allegiance to groups. They are basking in reflected glory.
Who Are Your Team?
Interestingly, the groups we choose to associate with change depending upon how the groups perform. This is because people associate with achievements that are not their own but that they have some connection to. This phenomenon was investigated in a 1976 paper by a group of researchers across several US universities. They monitored whether students were more likely to wear clothes proclaiming allegiance to the university after a victory or defeat at a college sporting event. They called this: basking in reflected glory. People “BIRG” when they are “publicly announcing their associations with successful others” (Cialdini, Borden, Thorne, Walker, Freeman, and Sloan, 1976 page 366).
Their study is admirable partly because it cleverly combines the kudos of doing fieldwork with the joy that lazy researchers get from not having to leave campus. In the study, the researchers checked what students wore in class on the Mondays after games. (A side note: In England I would never have worn my school colors when I was an undergrad. Indeed, I still don’t know what the colors of my universities were. Universities command excellent margins on school attire. So, I’m keen to encourage the wearing of school attire now that I’m being paid by a university).
Basking In Reflected Glory
The researchers then found that people use “we” more to associate with a successful team after their status was threatened. Connecting to winners seems to be about making ourselves look successful in other people’s eyes. We do this more when we think others are looking down on us.
This ties into the World Cup because on Monday [written in 2014] you can look out for those proclaiming their allegiance to the winning national team. Perhaps you should gently mock the BIRGers by asking them how they contributed to the team’s success.
This last idea illustrates another phenomenon. Supporters of losing teams (like me) are sometimes bitter.
For more on soccer see here, here, here, and here.
Read: Robert Cialdini, Richard Borden, Avril Thorne, Marcus Walker, Stephen Freeman, and Lloyd Sloan, Basking In Reflected Glory: Three (Football) Field Studies, 1976, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 3, pages 366-373.