Whether it’s voters, or sports fans, I’ve noticed that if someone says “I don’t think we will win,” he or she will usually then get blasted by people who accuse him/her of not wanting to win, or in fact actually being from the ‘enemy’ side.
“I think Trump is going to lose in November” - “go back to the DNC, Biden supporter!”
“Yankees will probably lose to Boston in 5 games, maybe even a sweep” - “go back to Fenway Park, Sox fan!”
I find this psychology rather fascinating and wanted to analyze it a bit. What is it that leads people to think that if you support a sports team or candidate that it must somehow mean that you need to predict or believe victory is the outcome that will happen?
It’s not about what you believe, but about what you say. Saying you Trump is going to win is not just making a prediction. It is claiming that, no matter what Biden’s supporters do, Trump will still win. The implication is that there is no point in fighting–that the person saying so is giving up. That’s what pessimism is, after all: giving up. Pessimistic people don’t try (about the things they are pessimistic about) , because they know they’ll fail.
Obviously messaging like that would help Trump win. The better choice is something like “Trump is favored to win, so we’ll have to do a lot of work to fight it.” Not to give up.
I know less about sports fandom. However, my guess would be that it’s the above plus the idea that the fans actions matter in who will win. Thus, again, being pessimistic means you don’t try.
Though maybe it’s just more that, if you really think the outcome is decided, there’s no reason to watch, and you’re not any fun to hang out with for the game. In my experience, the fun is in getting your hopes up. It’s why I’m only ever interested in close games, and not one where the outcome seems unlikely to change.
Philosopher Giordano Bruno (I hope all of you know him), said: “it is not the matter that generates thoughts, it is thought that generates matter”
They probably take inspiration from these words.
Of course you know “self fulfilling prophecy”
They maybe hope it?
There’s some real world reasons. If you’re pessimistic, you are kinda likely to not be “all in” wrt effort. So here’s where I draw a big line between the equated “voters” and “sports fans” in the first post.
The word I’d use is faith. A lot of people think faith can affect reality. If you believe something is true, it will become true. And vice versa; a lack of faith can cause something to become false.
Sports is easy. Being a sports fan is a kind of social contract where everyone involved is supposed to suspend disbelief in the service of having fun.
If I go to a tailgate for a football team that’s 0-11 for the season and go around telling them they’re going to lose - even if it’s a virtual certainty because their entire offensive line has COVID and they’ve been forced to play the janitor at QB - I’m still an asshole. I’m shitting on their good time.
Although Mrs. L and I enjoy watching “Chopped,” we always skip the first few minutes. The chefs are announced and they always start with trash talking. “I’m Chef Bob and nobody can beat me.” Etc. Even if Chef Bob gets chopped in the first round, nobody goes back and says “I thought you said nobody could beat you…what happened, Mr. Invincible?” So I guess it’s just expected.
That seems to be the code for sports, politics, whatever. But I think when you do that, you may inspire the opponent to pull out all stops to beat you.
There is a very real effect in politics. If potential voters get the message that their preferred candidate is going to lose, they tend to stay home on election day, depressing the candidates vote. Sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.
It is why networks won’t call the presidential race in the eastern states until the polls on the West Coast have closed.
I think this is the main reason, especially for sports. How many times in casual talk do people talk about not ‘jinxing’ it? People, even rational people, can be wildly suspicious about the strangest things.
The second point, and one of the reasons I quoted @Little_Nemo’s follow up to @Trinopus’s excellent analysis, is that if it’s a matter of faith, then those who don’t share your beliefs are often seen as actual enemies. Which ties into the OP where expressing pessimism is seen as being for the other side. So for politics, if you are seeing it as a matter of faith, those that are dismissive (even if theoretically on your side) of the chances of your candidate/party/etc, then they are being unfaithful, and defacto members of the enemy party.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I take back my first idea. I don’t think anyone actually thinks the cheering helps. I think it’s just part of that suspension of disbelief.
Pessimism just isn’t fun. People who suspending belief to be optimistic don’t want to hear it. And anyone who can’t at least pretend the team has a chance to win has no reason to watch.
Only a very few actually have real faith–you know, the ones who would wear a lucky jersey or something. I’m pretty sure most are pretending.
If you’re a player, and you say something like “I don’t think we’ll win,” this could reasonably be interpreted as having a defeatist attitude that could contribute to losing.
And then, people don’t always distinguish as well as they should between the “we” that means “the team that I am on” and the “we” that means “the team that I am a fan of.”