Anyone who has felt the incredible highs and lows of following a sports match might wonder: Is this a net benefit? “They know going in that there’s a 50% chance that when they are finished consuming this product, they are going to be cranky,” says Daniel Wann, a social psychologist at Murray State University in Kentucky who has studied sports fandom for decades. The question has inspired a lot of psychological research, including on the phenomena of CORFing and BIRGing: acronyms for “cutting off reflected failure,” or distancing oneself from a team when they lose, and “basking in reflected glory” when they win.
But overall, sports fandom seems to be a win for mental health. People find ways to restructure and frame their understanding of a game where their team loses. “I don’t know how you can be a sports fan and not be resilient,” Wann says. And in general, the psychological benefits of following a team are substantial. “Individuals that are really involved in a sports team, they have higher self-esteem, they have lower levels of loneliness and alienation, and they have a higher sense of social connectivity,” he says. “Fandom has the capability to help individuals meet basic psychological needs, like the need to belong.” At the same time, sports fandom allows people to set themselves apart from the group, giving themselves a unique identity within the community. You might be the sports fan who follows both football and archery, for example, or someone who specializes in following a particular group of players. Individuation is a basic psychological need, too.
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