“Everybody loves a winner,” or so we often hear, but it may not necessarily be true, especially at bowl time.
According to Joseph Vandello and his colleagues at the University of South Florida (which incidentally boasts a pretty good football team), we like underdogs. Vandello et al. presented participants with political and sports scenarios that led them to see one side as Goliath and the other as David.
For example, participants read an historical article about the Israeli–Palenstinian conflict, but two groups saw different maps. One map showed Israel as smaller than Palestine (hence the underdog), while the other showed Palestine as smaller than Israel. Even though the students read identical essays, they consistently “sided” with the smaller territory they saw.
Why should we back the underdog? We still have work to do in order to answer that question. Vandello et al. suggest that we have some sort of intrinsic sense of justice or fair play, but personally, I find this a bit hard to swallow. Human history rarely speaks about justice, but says a lot about power. Another suggestion is that we give “A” for effort. Underdogs seem to be trying harder.
My personal take is that jealousy plays a strong role. We might admire an overwhelming winner, but there is a nasty tendency among people to enjoy seeing somebody “brought down a notch,” so that we don’t feel so far behind. We’ll leave the final verdict to the social psychologists, shall we?
In the meantime, if you like underdogs, check out the Yahoo odds on the bowl games (and no–I don’t gamble. I talked Mr. F out of “wasting” a $2 bet in Florida that would have paid for our entire trip, and I still hear about it 35 years later).
In this year of “parity,” most of the games look pretty close. The biggest spread is in the Rose Bowl, THE BOWL chez Freberg. USC is a 2 touchdown favorite over Ron Zook’s Illini. Florida isn’t far behind with a 10 1/2 point lead over Michigan, courtesy of the multi-talented (and apparently very nice) Tim Tebow. Interesting how Karen’s schools are always in the mix–Florida, Tennessee, and USC are all favorites in their respective bowls, and Karen thinks very highly of Ron Zook, who coached at Florida while she was there.
Am I predicting the national championship? I think LSU will win, but I wish Ohio State would….how’s that for confusion?
You can see the whole Vandello et al. article here for free. Thank you Sage!
