Monday, September 15, 2008

Banjo Therapy

Well ... the football team lost to Wisconsin.

Immediately afterward, I sat alone in my darkened living room and composed a new tune. It's a bit more sad and reflective than my previous arrangement. I call this one "What Might Have Been."

Friday, September 12, 2008

Fight Varsity!

I've completed and recorded my very first banjo arrangement! It's a song called "Fight Varsity!" You might not recognize the name but see if you recognize the tune.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Fresno State vs. Wisconsin: Why Do I Care?

Like many people here in Fresno, I'm pretty excited about the upcoming football game against the University of Wisconsin. By kickoff, I'll be downright agitated.

In fact, I tend to get so worked up during big games that watching them is not even enjoyable. I'm usually on my feet, pacing, waking in and out of the room, and yelling things like, "Don't field the damn punt inside the ten!"

But, really, why do I care?

I don't know anyone on the Fresno State team, and my family and friends don't really care about the outcome. I do have friends at other universities for whom a Fresno State win would provide me with "bragging rights." But that just begs the question. What would I have to brag about?

So logically, being a diehard fan of a sports team doesn't make much sense. Psycho-logically, however, it's a different story.

Social psychologists have long maintained that we define ourselves in part by our many group memberships. This means that our groups' successes contribute to our own personal self-esteem. In Henri Tajfel's classic social identity theory, people's need for self-esteem leads them to exaggerate the good qualities of the groups they belong to ("ingroups") and diminish those of the groups they don't belong to ("outgroups"). Furthermore, they do this even when the groups are created arbitrarily. (I was able to use this fact a few years ago to show that people's probability judgments are biased in favor of what they want to be true. Here is the abstract of that study.)

So maybe this is why I care. Even though my association with Fresno State is essentially arbitrary (they happened to be hiring psych faculty with my area of expertise at the time I happened to be looking for a tenure-track job), my self-esteem goes up when the football team wins because this reflects favorably on my group ... and it goes down when they lose.

Pathetic, really.

Go 'Dogs!