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!
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I never understand you sports fans. My boyfriend is the same way with soccer. It's a ritual already, every Sunday morning he's yelling at the TV, pacing back and fourth, and biting at his nails like if the players could hear him yelling! I never understand why he cares either but your explanation makes sense. I can see how and why it can boost someone's self esteem but I'm on the same page as you sometimes I do think its pathetic.
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