Given the presence of well-known underdog stories in literature, mythology, and sport, it might seem intuitively obvious that most people sympathize with and support such figures. But why should we be drawn to the Davids, Texans at the Alamo, Greeks at Thermopylae, or Rocky Balboas of the world?
That's the question posed by the University of South Florida's Joseph A. Vandello, Nadav P. Goldschmied and David A. R. Richards in their paper "The Appeal of the Underdog," in the December issue of Personal and Social Psychology Bulletin. (Because I'm so slow in posting this, the whole article is free on line; download it here.)
Hustle, effort, heart, and wanting to win
The four experiments described in the paper are fun, and the results predictable:
- When students were told which countries had the most Olympic medals and asked which teams they'd back in various pairings, they rooted for the teams with fewer medals.
- When students were shown a map of Israel dwarfing the the Palestinian territories, they expressed support for the Palestinians -- but when they were shown a map of Middle Eastern countries dwarfing Israel, they expressed support for Israel.
- Students watching a taped basketball game not only rooted for whichever team they had been told was the underdog, but attributed more "hustle, effort, heart, and wanting to win" to that team.
- Students told that a team was likely to lose and that it had a lot less money than the other team, they rooted for that team. But when they were told a team was likely to lose and that it had a lot more money than the other team, they didn't much care who won.
Why we do it
So why do we root for the underdog? The fourth experiment gives a big clue to one of the reasons: because we want to help compensate for undeserved inequality. If one contestant is outmatched for reasons that aren't his fault, that's unfair, and our sense of justice reaches out to fix it.
We might also root for underdogs just because we enjoy drama:
An alternative, or additional, motivation for supporting underdogs might derive less from abstract moral concerns about fairness and more from self-interested, rational calculations of one’s own emotions. Because underdog success is by definition unexpected, this may increase the excitement of rooting for an underdog.
And for almost every little guy who wins, there's a big guy who loses, and that makes us happy too:
Rather than being strongly supportive of underdogs, might people instead root against dominant entities (this would be consistent with the sentiment, “my favorite team is whoever is playing the Yankees”)?
Working with it
Many trials can be framed as an underdog against a big dog, and this dynamic is often critical. Civil personal injury lawyers often use the narrative brilliantly; although defense lawyers in those trials can sometimes turn it around if they show that the plaintiff somehow has earned his "weaker" position. On the other hand, even though a criminal defendant is usually a heavy underdog, criminal defense lawyers (except Jon Katz) are less successful in using the "underdog" narrative -- often, again, because the government convinces the jury the defendant's life of crime is what put him in the underdog spot.
Let this paper challenge you to think more subtly about the underdog dynamic than you might have before. Who is the underdog in your next trial? Is it fair or unfair that she's in that position, and why? Take a few steps back -- is there a sheer entertainment value in watching how the weaker side might conquer? How does that affect your client? Is there a "big dog" that jurors might enjoy taking down, no matter how much the underdog deserves to lose? What is it that makes that party so easy to root against? Are you that party?
(Photo -- get it? Under dog? -- by Dan Bennett at http://www.flickr.com/photos/soggydan/481674998/; license details here.)
