The Joy of Pain

by Richard H. Smith

  Spectators feel powerful emotions, even when no family members are playing. The successes and failures of the groups to which we belong affect us perhaps as much as do our individual ups and downs.7 The attachments we have to groups are quickly cemented and often arbitrary, yet consequential despite these arbitrary origins. The first experiments to hint at this uncanny process were performed by the Polish-born social psychologist Henri Tajfel in the 1960s.8 Tajfel was as an international student at the Sorbonne at the outbreak of World War II, and he was called into service by the French. He survived imprisonment in Nazi prisoner of war camps only because his Jewish identity remained hidden. Most of his friends and relatives were not so lucky, and the terrible difference in their fates, based simply on ethnicity, spurred him to do his now classic research.

  In his early experiments, Tajfel recruited British school boys at the University of Bristol as participants. The boys estimated the number of dots flashed on a screen and were then categorized into groups of either “overestimators” or “underestimators.” These categorizations were actually random, so neither group could logically assume any superiority over the other. But when these boys were given the opportunity to either favor their “ingroup” or discriminate against the “outgroup” in distributing rewards, they usually did so.

  These findings are easy to replicate using even more arbitrary categorization procedures, such as randomly assigning participants to merely group “A” or group “B.” We now understand this phenomenon as the “minimal group paradigm,” and it suggests that human beings have an inbuilt tendency to categorize themselves and others into ingroups or outgroups. Why do we do this? One reason is that it helps us achieve a useful clarity and certainty about our self-concept. Knowing that one is an ”overestimator” not an “underestimator” clarifies who one is, and this in itself is useful. It also provides an opportunity to enhance our self-esteem because we mostly conclude that our own groups are superior to others.9 When it comes to evaluating the groups we belong to, actual objectivity is elusive, and we like it this way.

  THE EMOTIONAL LIFE OF THE TRUE FAN

  Sports fans know that the wins and losses of their favorite teams affect them in the emotional gut, even when cheering from the sofa. This may seem strange to those who have little interest in sports. But Tajfel’s findings, and the decades of research he has inspired, offer a window into the workings of fandom. A savvy and entertaining confirmation of Tajfel’s ideas is Warren St. John’s book, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer.10 St. John, a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, took a six-month sabbatical from his job as a reporter for The New York Times to tackle one core question: why in the heck did he care so much about Alabama football?

  Enrolled at Columbia University in the early 1980s, St. John and his fellow students were experiencing the longest losing streak in modern college football history. But for St. John, the only team that really mattered was the football team of the University of Alabama, the Crimson Tide. Few other Columbia freshmen understood the significance of the poster of Paul “Bear” Bryant, Alabama’s legendary coach, displayed proudly in St. John’s dorm room. But at home in Alabama, the zeal of the Crimson Tide fans was unsurpassed. And St. John shared this zeal.

  St. John collected most of the material for his book by spending the 1999 fall season attending every Alabama game and immersing himself in the tailgating culture of a group of Alabama fans. He bought a barely functional RV, dubbed the “Hawg,” to attend away games and to provide credibility among the group of fans who also drove their RVs to these games. The RV folks were suspicious of St. John at first, but they could soon tell that wins and losses mattered to him as much as they did to them. He was giddy when Alabama won and numb when it lost. As much as anything, this let him gain the trust of these über-fans.

  More than 40 years earlier and across the Atlantic Ocean, Tajfel’s experiments had suggested that our allegiances to groups have almost astonishingly unplanned origins. St. John’s story also offers good evidence. In Tuscaloosa in the 1940s, his then 18-year-old father, Warren St. John Sr., was struggling with the decision of which university to attend. His first preference was Georgia Tech, but his parents were about to divorce because of his father’s chronic drinking problem. St. John’s father decided to stay near his parents and attend the University of Alabama. He started his own family nearby. And so, for this tangled set of reasons, his son, Warren, would attach his devotion to the Crimson Tide and would be singing the fight song “Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer,” rather than “(I’m a) Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech.”11

  I grew up in Durham, North Carolina, the home of Duke University, because my parents chose to move there for their own set of haphazard reasons. This meant that the Duke Blue Devils became my Crimson Tide; it was as if a mischievous spirit dropped a magic potion on my boyish eyelids while I slept, as in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. I awoke to see a Duke Blue Devil mascot, and I have rooted for Duke ever since.

  It may seem that our emotions follow from a narrow focus on our own team’s winning or losing. But the logic of Tajfel’s research suggests that it takes two groups to tango. The British boys in Tajfel’s studies favored their own group, but they also discriminated against the outgroup. The thrill of winning means that we have won and a competitor has lost. Interestingly, this can mean that winning away from home feels better than winning at home. This accentuates that the rival is now a “loser.” St. John noted this when describing how he felt while leaving Florida’s stadium, the “Swamp,” after Alabama had beaten Florida. Whereas the visiting Alabama fans seemed drawn together by the high of the victory, the losing Florida fans seemed to separate from each other, like wounded animals needing isolation. Away from the noise of the stadium, they could remove the now ridiculous-looking paint that they had applied fastidiously to their faces before the game. For a moment, St. John felt pity for these miserable creatures. But only for a moment, because when he received a hateful look from one of them, he belted out the Alabama victory cry, “Rammer, Jammer, Yellow Hammer,” with wild, unself-conscious abandon.

  How much of the satisfaction of winning comes from the defeat of the other team? One way to consider this is to focus on situations in which a rival team loses, but not at the hands of one’s own team. After Alabama’s loss to Louisiana Tech, St. John was relieved to hear the results of another game, this one between Florida and Tennessee. Since Alabama fans dislike both teams, there will be some consolation that at least one of them will have to lose.12

  Any type of misfortune befalling rival teams, such as injury or scandal, is red meat for people highly invested in their own team. In July 2006, J. J. Redick, the two-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball player of the year for Duke University, was arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol. This was an embarrassment both for Redick and for Duke. Redick had just graduated and was waiting to learn how he would do in the professional draft. The DUI charge would hurt his chances to do well, which would mean a reduced starting salary. The university was also having a tough time, as it was still reeling from the suspension of its lacrosse team for alleged sexual crimes by team members (the charges were ultimately dropped).13 Redick’s misstep was unwelcome news for Duke fans, but how was it received in Lexington, Kentucky, where I now live, home of the University of Kentucky? When I came to work the following day, one of my colleagues stopped by my office early and asked, “Did you hear about Redick?” He pulled a face of fake compassion and wiped away imaginary tears. When I checked my e-mail, there was a message from another colleague wanting to know if I had heard the “bad” news. Exultation powered every typed word.

  Why the schadenfreude? Alabama fans may dislike Florida, but I doubt it reaches the scorn for which most University of Kentucky basketball fans have for Duke University. Like Duke, Kentucky is a perennially strong team and usually in the running for the national championship (Kentucky won the national championship most recently in 2012; Duke won in 2011),
making it a natural rival. There’s another reason. In 1992, Kentucky lost in overtime to Duke in the Eastern Regional Finals. The game was won in the last couple of seconds, when Duke player Christian Laettner performed a turnaround jump shot after having received an improbably accurate full court pass from Grant Hill. This shot had snatched away what had appeared to be a sure victory for Kentucky and a place in the coveted “Final Four,” the grouping of four teams that compete in the last phase of the National Championship tournament. To the deep irritation of the Kentucky faithful, a clip of this shot replays every spring during each phase of the national tournament (dubbed “March Madness”), and most Kentucky fans have developed a helpless distaste for Duke ever since. And so, as a rare Duke fan in Lexington, I am a target of teasing—or worse—when anything unfortunate happens to the Duke basketball program.

  Kentucky rarely plays against Duke. When it does, and when Kentucky wins (as it did in the 1998 Eastern Regionals), the joy is many-fold greater for Kentucky fans than simply learning about an isolated case of Duke’s losing. But any Duke loss, misfortune, or scandal will do in a pinch. And, in these cases, the joy is clearly in the loss.

  The particulars of the Duke-Kentucky rivalry may be unique, but its underlying dynamics are universal. A study using Dutch participants provided empirical evidence for what one sees in everyday life.14 The researchers assessed Dutch soccer fans’ reactions to an article describing the loss of the German national team, the Dutch team’s main rival. Beforehand, the researchers also measured the extent of the fans’ interest in soccer. Indeed, most fans found the loss suffered by Germany pleasing, but the loss generated greater pleasure for those most interested in soccer. These were the fans who had the most to gain emotionally from the rival’s loss. In another phase of the study, just before describing their emotional reactions to Germany’s losing, some of the fans were primed to think about losses that the Dutch team had suffered in the past. This intensified the pleasure over Germany’s loss all the more. These fans had even more to gain, psychologically, from learning about their rival’s loss. To fans suddenly concerned with their team’s inferiority, a rival’s loss was welcome news.

  WHAT ARE THE LIMITS TO SCHADENFREUDE IN SPORTS?

  It is extraordinary that the randomness of our team associations fails to render them trivial in their effects on us.15 But what are the boundaries to what will produce schadenfreude? Cultural norms, if not people’s capacity for empathy, dictate that claps and cheers stop if an opposing player gets injured. Natural expressions of true concern sweep over every face. Yet there is a distinction between the immediate emotional reaction at the moment of seeing a player injured and the quick realization of the meaning of the injury for one’s own team. Compared to a turnover or missed shot, an injury to an important player on the opposing team leads to a greater competitive gain. In addition to feeling bad for the player, is it reasonable to expect the average person to feel no pleasure over this benefit as well?

  St. John certainly admits to the impulse. He describes one game against Louisiana Tech in which, toward the end of the game, quarterback Tim Rattay was leading Tech to what appeared to be a go-ahead score. Rattay had been shredding the Alabama defense with accurate passes, and the Tech offense seemed unstoppable.

  A minute forty left. This time Alabama rushes five linemen. Rattay pumps his arm as the pocket collapses on top of him. As he stumbles backward, his cleats bite the turf awkwardly, violently torquing his right ankle. A hulking two-hundred-forty-pound mass of red in the form of linebacker Darius Gilbert smothers Rattay at the thirty-five. He gets up limping. Tech calls time.

  I have an unsporting feeling: I’m happy he’s limping.16

  But Rattay is able to stay in the game, and he continues to move the team forward and very close to a score. Rattay takes the snap again and, before he can set up to pass, finds himself in the grasp of two Alabama linemen. One has him by his tender ankle and the other by his upper body, creating a twisting effect. He is driven to the ground headfirst as his ankle is wrenched a second time. He is badly injured, hobbles off the field, and collapses on the sideline bench. How does St. John feel about this? It is good news. As St. John summarizes the result,

  He has thrown for 368 yards and three touchdowns, and now he’s finished.

  Hallelujah and amen.17

  Are St. John’s sentiments atypical? I doubt it. Some susceptibility to feel this way is part of what it means to be a true fan. When Tom Brady, the New England Patriots’ quarterback, tore his anterior cruciate ligament at the beginning of the 2008 season, few fans outside the New England area seemed to show much sympathy. Some New York Jets’ fans were admonished for voicing open joy. But one Philadelphia blogger, Andrew Perloff, came to their vigorous defense. He argued that it would be absurd not to celebrate if a rival quarterback got injured.18 Perloff may be an outlier, but in the world of spectator sports, emotions run high and frank expressions of schadenfreude are more common than in other areas of life.19 In sports, people are freer to voice their darker feelings—the same feelings that in most other contexts would be shameful.

  Research shows that the average fan is quite capable of being pleased over injuries to players on opposing teams.20 Charles Hoogland, Ryan Schurtz, and their fellow researchers at the University of Kentucky asked students to respond anonymously to an article describing either a mild (wrist sprain) or a severe injury (knee tear) to a star player for Duke University’s basketball team (later, they were told that the event was fictitious). They also completed a measure assessing how identified they were with Kentucky basketball. The results were illuminating. Students who cared little about basketball felt no schadenfreude but considerable sympathy for the player. Naturally, sympathy was greater when the injury was severe. The highly identified fans experienced these events very differently: they tended to be pleased over both injuries. The severe injury produced less schadenfreude than the mild, but even the severe injury produced a significant amount of pleasure. Most students who reported feeling pleased also indicated that they felt this way because injury would help the Kentucky team and hurt the Duke team. This was the main reason, along with a basic dislike of Duke. With a few extreme exceptions, the pleasure these fans felt was mild, especially when the injury was severe—but that many felt any pleasure at all suggests how “negative” events happening to others are interpreted in the eye of the beholder. Being a highly identified fan flipped the normal meaning of the event: a “bad” thing happening to the rival player was, to a degree, “good.”21

  Other research shows that there may be an evolutionary “wired-in” basis for such reactions to a rival group’s suffering. In their Princeton University social neuroscience lab, psychologists Mina Cikara, Matthew Botvinick, and Susan Fiske obtained brain scans of either diehard Boston Red Sox or New York Yankee fans as they watched simulated baseball plays. These plays featured their own team and their rival playing against each other, against a neutral team, or two neutral teams playing against each other. After each play, the participants reported their levels of pleasure, anger, and pain. Own-team winning, beating the rival, and seeing the rival fail against a neutral team all produced more pleasure than did seeing two neutral teams compete against each other. Losing to any team and seeing the rival succeed produced more anger and pain. The brain scans concurred with self-reports. Activation of brain regions associated with pleasure (the ventral striatum—putamen, nucleus accumbens) was also linked with baseball plays in which participants reported being pleased. Activation associated with pain (anterior cingulate cortex and insula) was linked with plays in which participants reported feeling pain. Thus, how the participants’ own group was doing compared to the rival outgroup showed close connections with reward and pain systems in the brain. A rival’s failure is a good and pleasing thing, whether our own group is doing the vanquishing or another, neutral group is doing it. It gives a pleasing boost to our ingroup identity, which is an important ingredient in our overall self-feelings. As Cikara
and her colleagues argue, because these brain systems respond to basic, rudimentary reward and pain situations, they probably developed very early in our evolutionary history. But they may have further evolved to help us respond adaptively to the beneficial or threatening aspects of intergroup contact.22

  There was another interesting finding in these researchers’ study suggesting the intense motivations that can underlie schadenfreude. Their participants were contacted a few weeks after giving their reactions in the scanner. They completed a Web survey designed to assess their willingness to harm rival fans or nonrival fans by heckling, insulting, threatening, and hitting. Participants expressed a greater willingness to do these things to rivals than to nonrivals.

  There does seem to be something about intergroup dynamics that brings out competitive instincts. When groups are rivals in sports, competition is a given, but the psychology of intergroup relations suggests many reasons why the competitive mindset will be amplified. Social psychologists Chet Insko, Tim Wildschut, Taya Cohen, and others have done many experiments that compare interactions between two individuals with interactions between two groups. Groups end up being more competitive than individuals.23 This “individual-group discontinuity effect” is remarkably robust and easily replicated. Why? First, it is easier to serve the interests of our group than our own narrow interests without seeming greedy. Second, we are apt to see it as our duty as a loyal group member to favor our group. Far from feeling greedy, we take pride in serving our group’s interests. Third, we are much more likely to attribute competitive motives, as well as a host of other negative traits, to outgroups than to individuals; outgroups are more difficult to trust and thus require our vigilance. Finally, any aggressive actions we do take seem to be a collective group action rather than our own individual action, and this diffuses our responsibility for the nastiness that may result. No wonder intergroup relations can be so overloaded with conflict.