A few weeks ago on a lazy Saturday afternoon I was watching the Navy-Notre Dame football game on TV. As the game went on I found myself rooting for Navy. If someone knew me well they would wonder why. I did not attend either Navy or Notre Dame. I have very little attachment to either team (I know no one who went to either school). And either team winning didn’t make a lick of difference in my life. But the reasons were obvious to me. The Notre Dame players were bigger, stronger, more talented, and expected to win. After all they had beaten Navy 44 straight years in a row. (Navy won in overtime 46-44…it was very satisfying)

If you are like me you will root for the underdog (unless you are a fan of the favored team). A recent study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin looked at our tendency to root for the underdog, and why we do it. Turns out it is true, when students were given a chance to root for one country or another in an hypothetical Olympic swimming competition the students wanted the country that had earned the fewest gold medals to win. Why? Because people perceived that underdogs, although short on talent, worked harder during the contest, and therefore deserved to win more.

The authors went on to do another study to figure out when people liked the underdog and disliked the favorite. They asked individuals how much they would like a team to win depending on their odds of winning (70% vs. 30%) and how much the players were paid (a team with a high payroll vs. a team with a low payroll). Any guesses at when people wanted a team to lose the most when the payroll was high? In fact a team could be an underdog by the odds of winning, but if they were paid more people still wanted them to lose.

No wonder people hate the Yankees…

Further Reading:

Vandello, J. A., Goldschmeid, N. P., & Richards, D. A. R. (2007). The appeal of the underdog. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1603-1616.