November 3, 2011 • 36 mins
Why do humans devote so much time to organized sports? As it turns out, the roots of sports run deep. In this episode, Julie and Robert explore the evolutionary, tribal and neurological reasons to cheer on the Cornish Hens against the Fighting Cloacae.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
are you a sports fan? Would you would you categorize
yourself as a sports fan? Well, I mean the reason
why my voice is like this today is directly related
(00:24):
to me being a sports fan. Oh yeah, yeah, you
were yelling at them to turn their game down or no. No.
I was my synchronized swimming team last night and uh,
fourth quarter I was getting pretty rough and uh, Ethel
big Spee just threw her shoulder at when she was
trying to breach the water like a dolphin. It was
(00:45):
intense and uh so that's just you know, that's what happened.
I was like, go hammer Heads, Go hammer Heads. Yeah, yeah,
I hear they're doing pretty good. Yeah the hammer Heads
this year. Yeah they're doing pretty good. Yeah. Well, sports
fanom is one of those things I've I have to confess.
I I've never really have gotten into team sports, and uh,
(01:07):
the rare occasions that I I am pulled into into
sports at all intends to be things that are like
one on one competition like I have in the past
been sucked into some mano a mano. Yeah, like I've
been sucked into some tennis. Before I found myself watching
things like um, like judo or Korean sumo. I thought
was pretty cool when I saw it once. Um, you
(01:29):
know these kind of things where it's like one one
dude batt on another dude to one gal bat on
another gal um. That kind of thing is about as
close as I come to understand. Because you're a wrestling fan,
right like with the upper case F. Yeah, well, I
you know, yeah, in the past, I've and you know,
in the current, when I have time, I I do
watch the professional wrestling and and that is not it's
(01:50):
hard to exactly quantify its position. It's four I think it.
It certainly exists outside of sports as this kind of
sports drama um scenario, so I don't really put that
in the same category. All right, So my question to
you is, when you're watching wrestling, do you scream uh
(02:11):
so vehemently that like spittle comes out of your mouth. No,
generally not, but I have I have actually not been
to a real live event or I haven't been to
it one of the bigger live events yet. As of
when this podcast publishes, I may have been because I
may be going to see the Muppets hosting Monday Night
Raw in Atlanta with tech Stuffs Jonathan Strickland. We will
(02:33):
see if that comes to pen. It's hey, the very
first episode of The Muppet Show had professional wrestling in it.
Look it up on YouTube. But no, it's weird when
when I'm watching pro wrestling, because it's it's on one hand,
I have to have this sort of suspension of disbelief
where I'm accepting the drama that is happening as real
on some level. In the same way if I'm watching
(02:54):
a movie which I know is is acted out by
by actors saw on one level, I'm kind of like, oh, yeah,
that this is the good guy, this is the bad guy,
and I'm I'm, you know, trying to figure out the
scenario that's taking place here. And then on the other hand,
there's a part of me that knows that this is um,
this is the an orchestrated and slash improv'd event, uh
(03:14):
no matter how physical between two performers, and sort of
evaluating on on that level. So so you're getting caught
up in the drama regardless and well, if it's a
good enough match that it's like a movie. Sometimes the
movie is not very good and it just does not
suck you in at all, right, right, which is probably
just like a sports team, like a particular game that
(03:36):
sometimes might be boring to a sports fan. That's right.
You hear people talk about like a game that is
just like say, someone, uh, what throw pitches? A perfect
game in baseball? Sounds good? Like that in itself is
exciting the fact that it's such a rarity to occur
that you want to be there when it happens, I understand,
But the game itself is probably not going to be
(03:56):
exciting beyond that possibility. Yeah, well, so that a lot
of drama plays into this, and we'll talk more about
this in a bit, but this is I think what
caught our imagination so much is that people really feel
very strongly, uh some sports fans, uh fanatics, really strongly
about their teams and identify of them quite a bit.
(04:18):
So we wanted to kind of scratch at the surface
and see what we could find out about why people
are so committed to this, right, and then we're both
coming at this is kind of an outsider to sports
fandom except for synchronized except for your synchronized women take.
But I mean, the interesting thing about it is that
that while there is a tendency for non sports fans
to sort of categorize like non sports fans and then
(04:38):
sports fans, is this kind of alien creature and and
certainly it can be hard to understand what's going on
with obsessive sports fans especially, But you see people of
all walks of life that are either drawn into sports
or not. You see women, you see men, You see
see people varying lifestyles and ethnicities and political beliefs that
are either drawn into sports and off in hardcore or
(05:01):
it just like they don't have the gene for it
or something and exact. And there definitely needs to be
more studies on that, right, Why some people gravitate toward
it and some people don't. Yeah, it's always happening with
me too, since I since I'm not a sports person,
I Am not going to be able to talk about
sports with somebody. So they'll be somebody I've known for
a while, I've been hanging out with a little bit,
and then suddenly it'll come out that they're into sports
in a major way. And I'm like, WHOA, I would
(05:22):
not have have paid you for that, But it just
drives home how you just cannot anticipate who is a
secret sports fan and who is not. Well. This is
from a New York Times article called Sports Psychology, and
they say that psychologists have long suspected that many die
hard fans are lonely alienated people searching for self esteem
by identifying with the sports team, but a study at
(05:43):
the University of Kansas suggests just the opposite, that sports
fans suffer fewer bouts of depression and alienation than do
people who are uninterested in sports. I thought was really
interesting and it makes sense, right, because it's a communal
thing for the most part. Usually people are watching with
another person or a group of people, and it's a
social event. Yeah, Like people go to like you pack
(06:04):
a stadium full of people for a football game, and
everybody there, for the most part, has one thing in common,
and that is that they like football. Now and then
what maybe like half of them only have uh, only
have a fandom for one team in common. You know,
one half is maybe supporting one team, half the other.
But uh, but even that, that's a large group of people.
(06:25):
That are really into a particular thing, into a particular team,
and it's an instant you know, like an instant conversation starter, right,
you can always talk about like, hey, how are the
how are the the Triglodytes doing this this year? They're
doing pretty good. I think they're gonna beat the uh
the Cornicians in the finals, you know, like that, it's
instantly something you can talk about in the elevator or
(06:45):
or even in just in passion debate, Like I remember
reading um I think, yeah, I think I read this
where it was Hunter S. Thompson talking about being on
the Nixon campaign trail and at one point finding himself
alone with Nixon and these there too. You could not
ask for two men of such different case and quality.
But they were both big football fans, like huge football fans,
(07:07):
so they were able to talk about football. So the
mere fact that sports fan of could unite Hunter S.
Thompson and Richard Nixon like like that alone speaks to
the importance of this phenomena. I have this memory of
him his ashes being shot out of a cannon after
he passed. Is that right, yes, or at least that
was the plan. I cannot call that his wish was
for that anyway, Yes, absolutely, nut Sky, and you're you're right,
(07:31):
sports can be a great unifier. Um, but the question
is like, who is exactly watching you know, sports? Here
from an ESPN study in two thousand and nine of
two hundred and nineteen million US sports fans aged twelve
and up, they found that, you know, that's kind of
a du College age men are major sports TV consumers,
watching more than three hours of national sports TV each week,
(07:52):
and this group is more likely to be watching the
events alone actually on TV rather than in a group
among males twin five to forty nine with families and
careers to consider, sports avidity and sports news TV viewing declines.
This kind of makes sense, right because priorities, you know,
maybe you can't watch as many sports, and um, when
(08:14):
the male fifty and over demographic watches sports with others,
it's usually with women. ESPN says women fifty and over
constitute about thirty percent of his audience in this segment.
And then as far as women go, for females, ages
eighteen are actually the age of eighteen is a demarcation
line when sports really tends to drop off. So what
(08:36):
that means is that when probably a female quits playing
a sport, she may become disinterested in watching it on TV,
or she's watching it with the parents, with the family
as possible, yeah, or with friends. Yeah. Yeah, But that
age group, they do see sort of a fall off.
I guess what you're saying, leaving the house and then
you're maybe going off to encounter new friends with different
(08:59):
different tastes. Yeah, exactly. Women twenty five to thirty four
are the group that are at least interested in sports. Uh,
thirty five and older began to pick it back up,
and this really interesting. Women fifty and over become bigger
sports fans, and their viewing interests increases at a rate
much faster than men in this fifty and over group.
And I my grandmother was a huge sports nut. I
(09:21):
mean she could go through the Atlanta Brave if she could,
you know, talk about every single one of them and
talk about their personal lives. Um, I mean she would
gossip about it in addition to talking about their stats.
It was pretty amazing. But that sort of I think
this maybe makes sense in a way because, um, as
you get older, you're probably a little bit more engaged
in TV in sports as a diversion, right, and as
(09:46):
we'll talk about a little bit more, Um, you get
engaged to the point where you actually physically or physiologically
are mimicking the actions that someone on TV may be performing.
So if your mobility is limited and you see someone
out there on the field, it could really give you
a surge, right to be watching on this game making
(10:06):
like actually allow you to rise up from your chair
like you've been healed by a TV preacher. Yes, I've
seen that with my grandmother. Yeah, she's just yeah, she
just started running around touchdown dance. Yes, yeah, because yeah,
they're always performing touchdowns with the braves. But um, yeah,
she just had like knitting and just threw it down
like a football. I've also read the sports fandom plays
(10:29):
a huge role in the purchase of video game consoles
and video game industry because as popular as some of
these like role playing sci fi fantasy games have become, um,
it's it's really like the sports, the sports and the
war games that are really driving uh, the systems and
really getting the sales and the downloads, and and that
there's something that we discussed there is we'll talk uh
(10:52):
later on in this podcast. Ye war in sports there's
there's obviously something going on there. Well, and and let's
talk about in that in that context tribalism in modern society.
Some people would say that professional and college athletes play
a similar role for a city in the stylized war
on a playing field. Okay, so the theory goes, even
though professional athletes are mercenaries in every sense, their exploits
(11:15):
maybe recreate the intense emotions that some fans might feel
that you would probably expect in tribal warfare. So again,
the theory is sort of throwing it back to, you know,
on evolutionary basis, that this was something that we're hardwired
for and we can't help but become engaged in what
we see as tribal warfare. One team against another team. Yeah,
(11:39):
it's like our city against yours since we since uh
Cincinnati can't actually invade um Chicago, Uh, they can make
an at least have to send a team there to
battle the other teams. So it becomes kind of a
symbolic tribal battle between these two groups. Like scratching that itch,
that that that we have for for this kind of competition,
(12:01):
for this kind of of violent encounter. Yeah, that Robert C. L.
Deanie is a professor of psychology at Arizona State and
he has said, quote, our sports heroes are our warriors.
This is not some light diversion to be enjoyed for
its inherent grace and harmony. The self is centrally involved
in the outcome of the event. Whoever you root for
represents you. So then yeah, there's this idea that you
(12:24):
know again that that's you out there on the field. Yeah.
I mean you end up attaching your ego to these
these people on these teams and uh, and they're out
there fighting your battle for you. Yeah. And to the
extent that again, you're not just thinking, oh that that
that's kind of like me. Are I identify with that person?
Physiologically you're becoming very aroused. Um. This is from Charles Hillman,
(12:45):
a psychologist now at the University of Illinois, and he
found that Ardent football fans at the University of Florida
experienced extreme physiological arousal when they viewed pictures of Gator
football stars making game winning plays, but responded indifferently to
pictures of other athletes and teams. Wow, so these become
the heroes, These become the the the icons yeah, it's
(13:08):
not just a a sports athlete. It's my specific sports
athlete that I have been following for years that I
know all this biographical data about um quote. Individuals that
are highly identified with teams show extreme arousal compared to
the average fan amongst zealous male and female fans. Dr
Hillman found that the level of arousal, which was measured
(13:29):
by heart rate, brain waves, and perspiration um by galvanic response,
was comparable to what fans registered when shown erotic photos
or pictures of animal attacks. Wow, well there you got.
Everybody loves a good picture of an erotic animal attack.
I mean, I joke, but it actually it brings to
mind the the old like pulp men's magazine covers that
(13:52):
you would see where it would be like one bare
chested guy with like a handgun in a machete fighting
off a wild animal while a scatterly clad win the
woman uh coward in the in the cave in the
corner or something. You know. It's like, it's it's everything
in one shot. It's uh, it's masculine violence, it's uh,
it's the erotic vulnerability. It's it's wild animals and you know,
(14:14):
all all these things at once in one rush. It's
all the bodice ripping, flesh tearing excitement that you could
hope for. Yeah, and then you can have that, or
you can have football right right right, with the same
reaction right or same results. Say. Okay, So in a
moment here we're gonna talk about men and hormonal changes.
But right after this print. This podcast is brought to
(14:38):
you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel.
At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation.
Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers
to life's questions. And we're back and where we're gonna
look at the hormonal changes you in sports fans. Yep,
(15:02):
you're watching the game and the game, the game, the
game is changing you. That's right. I mean you're not
like going through like some sort of like male menopause
or anything. But James Dabbs, a psychologist at Georges At University,
tested saliva samples from different groups of sports fans before
and after important games um In particular, he actually took
saliva samples from twenty one Italian and Brazilian men in
(15:25):
Atlanta before and after Brazil's victory over Italy in Soccer's
World Cup, the Brazilian's testosser and rose in average of
twenty eight percent, while the Italians levels dropped by twenty
seven percent. I mean, these are really these are significant
spikes and drops. How come um sports fandom can become
(15:48):
such an addiction really with many people, you know, like
to the point where the classic sort of man story
is like the couple goes out to a nice dinner
and the guy sneaks will keep sneaking away to the
bar to see to update the game, right, to find
out what the game score is, you know, And this
puts that in a lot more context, Like he's not
just a guy that's really into something and it's kind
of a jerk about it to his date, but he
(16:09):
has he has biological needs that need to be met
during the date by updates on the World Series game.
Well yeah, I mean it's because what's the payoff if
if they're victorious, you get this high high that you
get to actually feel for yourself, right that as if
you won the game yourself. Of course, the town side
(16:29):
is the low low and um DR dabs actually gave
questionnaires to various sports fans. Um, you know, after the
team lost or one and they found that their self
esteem was absolutely correlated with how that team performed, so
they could have a very low opinion of themselves, um,
and a drop in testosterone if the team lost. See
(16:51):
that's in It makes me wonder about like fans who
support teams that generally lose, that have a really poor record,
but they continue to really loyal fan Like if if
these are gods and our heroes and our mythic figures,
then I guess it's more in keeping with like the
beliefs of the Vikings and you know, the idea that
all the Norse gods will die in the battle in
the Battle of Ragnarok, and I guess that's kind of
(17:11):
like fans of the Minnesota Vikings. Who's whose team? Um,
And according to the sports fans kind of dies in
the Battle of Regnarock regularly on a weekly basis. Well, yeah,
some of that too. Um. They're sort of going back
to saying that the fans are really empathetic. It's probably
not something that people normally seeing. When you see someone
(17:33):
screaming on our TV, you don't necessarily say, oh, that
person is just full of empathy. But they really if
you identify with that team even if they keep losing,
then you know you still have this hope no matter
what the data says, and you know that your team
could pull it off. Yeah, and you and you still
you do get a number of benefits out of it. Hey,
there's still the community and the fans. Yeah. I feel
(17:54):
like there's this sense of of like long endured suffering.
You get to talk about I'm I'm a on of
the Vikings or or or in any other team that
doesn't have a spectacular winning record, but you get to
say I'm i'm I'm I'm a fan of this of
this team, our team. Man, we're not doing so great
this year. I mean again, it's still an instant conversation starter,
and you you kind of get the prestige of being
(18:17):
a loyal fan, like not a fly by night uh
fair weather fan who's just really into the Braves or
whoever when they happen to be doing really well or
when they're going to go to the World Series. You're
not just leaping on board the on the train when
the when the party's going on. You're there during the
long suffering seasons when nothing's getting done well. This is
from Boston dot Com Carl Crawford. He was talking about
(18:38):
his experience and he said, in many cases, research has
shown that tribal connection goes back to a fans childhood
when parents or siblings encouraged him or her to root
for a particular team. Jonathan Gray, editor of Fandom, Identities
and Communities in a Mediated World, compared of the inheritance
of sports fandom to the way in which preference for
a particular soap opera tends to be passed down within
(18:59):
families from generation to the next completely. And at least
in my family, this is true. My grandmother had her
preference and she took care of us sometimes, and so
that's what we watched, right. Grace says, it's something that
you can all talk about, just like what you're saying.
By the same token, he said, love of the socks
or the bruins can be imprinted on a child at
an early age and grow for a a mirror imitation to
a way to pay homage to one's family or school
(19:21):
or neighborhood. Or love of the Pretzels, remember that that
high school team. That's right, the Pretzels. Yeah, but coming
if you can root for socks. I guess I've never
really understood it. There are they socks? You how do
you root for a sock? Let me root for something
like a Well, look, you can make a sock into
a sock puppet very easily, and then you can imagine
(19:42):
it it being having some sort of humanness to it, right,
I can get that. But you don't see fans doing that,
do you know? I would that they did. I might
get into that everyone's watching the game through a sock.
But but then there's like a Georgia Tech here in
in Atlanta. They have the yellow jackets, and I can
get behind the all right, yellow jacket, this's wasp Wasps
(20:02):
are really cool. They're neat predators, their sleek they have
they're packing a sting. All right, that's a cool mascot.
But then I see signs that are like go jackets,
Like how can you remove the yellow? Because now you're
just talking about jackets. I'm just picturing that's just being cool, man,
I'm just picturing a bunch of like Fozzie jackets. That's
the in lingo. Who's gonna win between a Fonzie jacket
and like a lion or even a badger Fonnzie's jacket,
(20:24):
Are you kidding me? Like Fonzie's jacket could beat a sock.
I could see that, but but not like an actual
sentient being. I don't. I don't know about that. I
think that you don't understand that the powers of Fonzie there. Perhaps, Yeah,
that would be an intense fight. Um. But as you
can see, there's a lot that is bundled up in
this issue. Let's see, here's another really interesting bit of
(20:46):
information that says the fans connection to the game includes
an emotional component from the amygdala, a memory component from
the hippo campus, and some empathy from the prefrontal cortex.
A subject feels some relation to the player or the
other fans on on his side. Some of the sensory
motor areas light up to as if the subject is
imagining himself as say, like the shooter in a basketball game.
(21:09):
I think that's amazing. Um. And a lot of that
actually correlates with what we found out about mirror neurons,
right right. So, mirror neurons are a class of brain cell.
They're found in several parts of the brains, and they
fire in response to chains of actions linked to intentions.
All right. So there's in the New York Times the
article cells that read minds. They found that when you
(21:31):
see somebody perform an action such as picking up a baseball,
you automatically simulate that action in your own brain. Okay, okay,
So I mean it's the it's the reason that we're
able to get into like even fictional characters. You know, Yeah,
you're reading what a character is doing, the actions that
that they're engaging in in on a certain level, you're
becoming that person. I actually read that experiment show that
(21:53):
when you read a novel you memorize positions of objects
from the narrator's point of view, which I thought, well,
that is amazing that you're creating this blueprint of his
fictional world. Wow. And that's I think that's especially true
in I mean, it depends on the writer. Some writers
are not exactly uh into giving you a whole lot
of detail. But take a novel like Alan robe Gerlaise Jealousy,
(22:16):
which it takes entire the entire book. This is gonna
people are gonna run out and buy this. When I
explained this, uh, the entire book is a gentleman on
a banana plantation, sitting in a room, staring out the window,
trying to decide in his own head whether his younger
wife is having an a fair with another plantation. And
so it's just a lot of it. Alan robe Relat
(22:38):
is really into the details, and this book is like
basically him just going over the details in the room,
the view from the porch, the stain on the wall
where he killed a centipede, and uh and and just
trying to figure out and not being able to because
he doesn't have enough information to actually come to an answer.
So the whole book is just his his mental anguish
(22:58):
over this unanswerable question and his observations of the room.
And certainly by certainly by the end of it. But
tim pages into the book, you already have this really
clear picture of the space. And even now I haven't
read it in years, but I can definitely picture that
room that that guy is setting in that I am
setting in. And that's another interesting thing. Doesn't use the
word he or the man or anything. Alan Rodul writes
(23:20):
this book as if you are the person, but without
saying you, he just describes He's leaving it open ended
in terms of coloring it the perception, right like you
get the raw data, right, Yeah. I was just thinking
to you about when we've talked about this before and
in different contexts, but when you went to a room automatically,
what you start seeing is actually your brain trying to
(23:42):
figure out like the dimensions of a room. You're not
necessarily perceiving it through your eyes, like your brain is
constructing it for you. So it would make sense that
if you're reading a text or you're watching someone play baseball,
that you would start to see all of these different angles. Um,
and even if you're playing pool, right right, I mean,
this is a game of mathematics. You're trying to predict
(24:03):
what's going to happen with the outcome. It's going to
be if you know, person A shoots this into that pocket,
well it comes. It reminds me again of pro wrestling,
though in this scenario pro wrestling too. In many cases
it's it's like one dude versus another dude in a ring,
all right, and there there's this stage battle that takes place,
and there are various scenarios that can go down. With
(24:23):
one on one fighting. You have like a an underdog
against a far more dominant oppressor. Sometimes he is squashed
by that dominant oppressor. Sometimes he manages to score a victory,
that rush of that underdog victory against overwhelming odds. In
other cases it's individuals that are they're tightly matched and
ability that end up having a very competitive battle. And
then in other cases it's like the the individual that
(24:46):
you're rooting for is like so overpowered that he's just
blowing through opponents with ease. And I can see as
a consumer of this particular media, you end up, you know,
if you put yourself in the shoes, uh, or in
the boots of the individual. Uh. You know, it's like
a simplification of so many things in one's life, Like, oh,
they're overwhelming forces in my life, but here's this dude
(25:08):
overcoming an overwhelming force that just happens to be wearing tiny,
shiny pants. Well, you know what the interesting part about
that is if you are, if you're more engaged by
the shiny pants, laced up boots person that you're identifying with,
then say your neighbor, you probably have more active mirror
neurons than your neighbor does, and you're more empathetic. Huh. Well,
(25:31):
I Lucha libre is is another thing I have to
mention real quick, this is the Mexican wrestling and they'll
have the big match where two opposing wrestlers, a good
guy and a bad guy. Is this some one where
they wear the crazy Yeah, the crazy mask. But you'll
have a technico and a rudo, a good guy and
a bad guy, and they'll fight each other in a
big match where the loser is unmasked. He loses his
mask and he has to reveal his face and his
(25:53):
identity of the world. And I've seen some American fans
who have who have complained about, oh, well, these are
always predictable. You always know that who's gonna win in
this particular match. And I was reading, uh, some commentary,
this may have been on the Death Valley Driver board.
But but someone was pointing out there was a little
more in touch with with Mexican fandom of Luca Libre,
(26:14):
and they pointed out, well, it's like a it's like
a play being acted out. It's like if you were
to go see a religious epic after acted out, be
that the Passion of the Christ or the Ramayana or something,
you know, some sort of big epic, the actors are
going to be different. But the but the ultimate message
is the same and that's what people really get into
the telling of that tale. And so with this particular match, yeah,
(26:36):
the the winner may not be in doubt, but the
tale being told is what people are connecting with. So
it's cathartic. Yeah, yeah, And I feel it's the same
way with with organized sports. And because certainly the same
situations I talked about, like a dominant force crushing its opponent.
Fans of really successful teams are very talented teams. They
enjoy that week after week. Oh man, we crushed the
(26:58):
Cornisians this uh, last Sunday, wasn't that amazing? Well not
only that too, you've probably I mean, you've got a
history with the Cornish pens Um. You know, maybe you
you're you and your family have followed them for years
and years, and you have all this biographical data that's
just matrix in your mind, and so you, yeah, of
course you feel like this is someone in your own
family that you're rooting for. And then if they're if
(27:19):
they're not very good, and suddenly they have that chance
to overcome the the the oppressor, if they you know,
they get and if they score that underdog victory, I mean,
that's when you go out in your tear stuff down
in the streets and you know, yeah, yeah, this is
a really interesting thing that we found out too. It's
about emotion and memory, and it's a study done by
Duke University. And I find it interesting for two reasons. One,
(27:41):
researchers at Duke University, we're trying to figure out an
ethical way to study overwhelmingly positive and negative emotions without
really putting the screws to someone and missing with their heads. Yeah,
because you don't want to go to prison for your
for your research. So they came up with the idea of, oh,
basketball fans. We've got Chappel Hill here and we've got
Duke University. Is there's an intense rivalry here. We've got
(28:03):
all these basketball fans. Let's get some vetted fanatics in here,
basketball nuts people, and run some tests and run some
m r I on them and see how they respond,
how their memory responds to these games. So they got
fans from both sides and they had them watched the
game the same game three times, and then they put
them in the m r I and they showed them
(28:24):
clips and right before someone was about to shoot, for instance,
they stopped the clip and then they tested their memory,
and what they found is that if their team had
been winning or this was a winning shot, their memory
was so much better than if it, you know, if
the person failed to get the basket in or whatnot.
(28:44):
And you know, the correlation is that your memory is
really going to be informed by your emotional state at
that very moment, which you know has all sorts of
implications and things like PTSD and other areas in our lives.
Who are we're going through? Which romatic experience or a
happy experience? The way that we remember sociramatic stress. Yes,
I was thinking public displays of affection for some reason,
(29:07):
did I say no? No, you said the right one.
I was imagining like sports fans that are so they're like,
oh my goodness, we want and they immediately smooched the
fan next to them. Oh well, yeah, yeah, I don't
know if that actually happens. It might happen. It might
happen if you're an American in Italy, because there's there's
always a lot of smooching and a lot of sports
going on. It's a nation of lovers. Yeah, so there
you have it. Sports fandom. Our attempts to sort of
(29:29):
understand it a little that will probably have to call
on you guys to give us a little more in
depth analysis from the sports fans themselves, because I know
some of you guys are sports fans and you probably
have some inside about this. So if you're listening to
this podcast and then you're gonna catch the big game
immediately after, or the or the or the weekend after, uh,
take some of this information with you, do a little
self analysis, let us know. Yeah, I also want to
(29:50):
throw this little tidbit out there too. Um and some
of this research about mirror neurons and sports, you know,
really putting yourself in in the other person's place. It
came up several times that this could be a really
good explanation for porn. Well, okay, I just thought i'd
throw that out there because I'm sure someone has thought
to themselves, why is porn like cantinent for humans? There
(30:12):
you go, okay, well we'll we'll think about that as well.
Yeah cool. Let me reach into the listener mail back
here and then a lot of couple of digital correspondences here.
First we heard from the listener Amanda Amanda Rights and says, Hello,
my name is Amanda, and I recently listened to your
podcast about imaginary friends and thought I would share a
recent experience with you. Like a lot of kids, I
had an amaginary friend when I was little. Her name
(30:34):
was Maria, and she was looking back apparently nondescriptive imaginary
friends go. She was a normal human little girl, a
little older than myself. I don't remember what happened to her,
but at some point, as I grew up, she simply
wasn't a part of my life anymore. That would be
fairly normal and not worth sending an email about, if
not for what happened next. When I was around thirty,
(30:54):
she abruptly made a short lived return to my life.
She had grown up and appeared to be in her
early to mid thirties, and informed me that she had
lost track of me all those years ago and was
dropping back into check on me. She then left again
after a few minutes, and I haven't seen her since.
I have no idea what this says about my mental
state at the time, but I used the event as
a starting point for my two thousand and nine in
(31:16):
a in O w R I m O novel Intrigue,
which turned out to be the first novel I completed
to have the great work. I always enjoy your podcast,
so yes, indeed, congratulations, I'm finishing that book and UH
and certainly I think this podcast will drop in November.
So if you have a novel kicking around in your
head and you really want to even wanting to write it,
(31:36):
maybe this is the time to do it. You can
check out just do a search for in a n
O w R, I M O or not National Writing
Month November you should be able to find some details
on that. Uh. And we have another listener mail here
from Derek. Derrick writes in and says Robert and Julie,
why I wouldn't go so far as to say I
still have an imaginary friend as an adult, My youthful
(31:58):
illusionary companion is still a presence in my life. When
I was a kid growing up as a military brat,
I chose as my imagination imaginary friend, the constellation of
Ryan Uh. Whenever he was in the sky, I would
talk to him and discuss my problems with him, And
obviously in my mind I still personify it as a hymn. Still,
when I find myself burdener stress, I occasionally look into
(32:19):
the sky and talk to my old friend. Another place
where I think you'll find a lot of people with
imaginary friend like behavior is in traditional role playing games
like Dungeons and Dragons. Um and again, for anyone who
posented me with this, I believe we have an article
on this. If you go to Houston Works stot com,
then search for Dungeon and Dragons. Dungeon Dragons in the
classic sense is like pen and paper to keep track
of the numbers rolling dies, and then everything else takes
(32:42):
place in your head as a as an imagine imagined
encounter of between you and your party members against you know,
demons and orcs and what within your skill set that
characters allotted. Right, Yeah, and not that I haven't played
you've played? Oh cool, Well I have played Boy back
in the day too. We'll have to do a podcast
on that anyway, um Derrick continues, is this. I've spoken
(33:04):
to many players at these games, and many have experiences
of being surprised at the choices that their characters may
despite the fact that they are, of course, are completely
in control of that character's action. Thank you so much
for entertaining me every week, Darren. And indeed, yeah, that's
it's kind of I remember in the The Imaginary Friends podcast,
we we briefly mentioned like fictional characters like as you're
writing them, and you kind of reach this sort of
(33:25):
surfboard point where you feel like you're not completely in
control of the board or the story or the character anymore,
and it's kind of propelled by its own energy and
you're at least partially aboard for the ride, and you
don't know what's gonna happen next. So um, I never
reached that point myself playing Dungeon Dragons because I most
of my playing was just like in junior high on
scout trips and stuff. Yeah, I played with my brother
(33:47):
as his friends. So I don't think I was able
to bors your character. It was like the train of treatment. Okay, okay,
so but I wasn't allowed to be like a wizard
or anything. Oh you had to be a treatment, right
and order to play with them. So I might have
some psychological issues from that that I not to work
out that. Yeah, that was kind of sexist. I was
(34:09):
always and I tried to see I was always a
necromancer or tried to be, of course, But you know,
we should what we should do is we should bring
in the Dungeon Master for an episode of stuff to
blow your mind and you get to be whatever you want.
You can be a warrior or a wizard. You know,
I'm about to try right now. I would like to
do this and the dungeon Master will guide us through
(34:31):
and alarmingly, you know, short dungeon I'm on board, all right. Well, hey,
if anyone else has anything to share with us, uh,
we'd love to hear from you. Be sure to check
us out on Twitter and Facebook. We are blow the
mind on both of those. And and again I feel
like I should stress if you haven't been to the
House of Works dot com website and a little bit,
(34:51):
do check it out because we have a brand new
homepage that's pretty amazing. Like it's just it's it's just
it's a lot more engaging than the preview is homepage.
It's a union. Instantly are hit with like a number
of different articles and uh, it's organized in the really
cool yea, the organization is great. There are different tabs
where you can click on if you're always wondering I
want to win. The newest article on Austa worts is
(35:13):
there's a tab or new articles so you can see
them as they pop up. Yeah, so check that out
as well. And uh, you know, I'm about to give
the call out for our email address, but we just
got a piece of physical mail and the actually actual
snail mail snail mail, and it's pretty awesome. I'm going
to try to describe this post card. Um, it looks
to be like a Taiwanese wellness spot and which reflexology
(35:34):
is being practiced, and it's a sort of photo realist shot.
I guess you could go. It's pretty great. And it
comes to us from Sean and it says Hi, Robert Julie,
greeting from Taiwan. I've been listening to you since science stuff.
Thank you for producing a very educated show. So thank
you Sean, um that we really appreciate that. And Matt Our,
(35:55):
producer appreciates that as well. Yeah, and if you actually
want to send us snail me, I'm not going to
give the address out here because it's you got it. Yeah,
I don't know. I mean I wouldn't know unless it
wasn't only well, we'll first let me say that you
can find the address on the contact page so Worth
dot com. But if you want to write it down
all cuickts if you are old fashioned and you happen
to have a pen and paper. Here it is three
(36:16):
five oh Peachtree Road to northeast Sweet Atlanta, Georgia, three
oh three to six USA, and nothing living. Seriously, yeah,
unless it never turns out, unless it's imaginary, imaginary living. Yeah.
I guess we're welcome. Yeah, okay, And so the other
sort of traditional night to get in touch with us
(36:36):
would be to send us an email at below the
mind at houstuff works dot com. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
House to Work staff as we explore the most promising
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
are you a sports fan? Would you would you categorize
yourself as a sports fan? Well, I mean the reason
why my voice is like this today is directly related
(00:24):
to me being a sports fan. Oh yeah, yeah, you
were yelling at them to turn their game down or no. No.
I was my synchronized swimming team last night and uh,
fourth quarter I was getting pretty rough and uh, Ethel
big Spee just threw her shoulder at when she was
trying to breach the water like a dolphin. It was
(00:45):
intense and uh so that's just you know, that's what happened.
I was like, go hammer Heads, Go hammer Heads. Yeah, yeah,
I hear they're doing pretty good. Yeah the hammer Heads
this year. Yeah they're doing pretty good. Yeah. Well, sports
fanom is one of those things I've I have to confess.
I I've never really have gotten into team sports, and uh,
(01:07):
the rare occasions that I I am pulled into into
sports at all intends to be things that are like
one on one competition like I have in the past
been sucked into some mano a mano. Yeah, like I've
been sucked into some tennis. Before I found myself watching
things like um, like judo or Korean sumo. I thought
was pretty cool when I saw it once. Um, you
(01:29):
know these kind of things where it's like one one
dude batt on another dude to one gal bat on
another gal um. That kind of thing is about as
close as I come to understand. Because you're a wrestling fan,
right like with the upper case F. Yeah, well, I
you know, yeah, in the past, I've and you know,
in the current, when I have time, I I do
watch the professional wrestling and and that is not it's
(01:50):
hard to exactly quantify its position. It's four I think it.
It certainly exists outside of sports as this kind of
sports drama um scenario, so I don't really put that
in the same category. All right, So my question to
you is, when you're watching wrestling, do you scream uh
(02:11):
so vehemently that like spittle comes out of your mouth. No,
generally not, but I have I have actually not been
to a real live event or I haven't been to
it one of the bigger live events yet. As of
when this podcast publishes, I may have been because I
may be going to see the Muppets hosting Monday Night
Raw in Atlanta with tech Stuffs Jonathan Strickland. We will
(02:33):
see if that comes to pen. It's hey, the very
first episode of The Muppet Show had professional wrestling in it.
Look it up on YouTube. But no, it's weird when
when I'm watching pro wrestling, because it's it's on one hand,
I have to have this sort of suspension of disbelief
where I'm accepting the drama that is happening as real
on some level. In the same way if I'm watching
(02:54):
a movie which I know is is acted out by
by actors saw on one level, I'm kind of like, oh, yeah,
that this is the good guy, this is the bad guy,
and I'm I'm, you know, trying to figure out the
scenario that's taking place here. And then on the other hand,
there's a part of me that knows that this is um,
this is the an orchestrated and slash improv'd event, uh
(03:14):
no matter how physical between two performers, and sort of
evaluating on on that level. So so you're getting caught
up in the drama regardless and well, if it's a
good enough match that it's like a movie. Sometimes the
movie is not very good and it just does not
suck you in at all, right, right, which is probably
just like a sports team, like a particular game that
(03:36):
sometimes might be boring to a sports fan. That's right.
You hear people talk about like a game that is
just like say, someone, uh, what throw pitches? A perfect
game in baseball? Sounds good? Like that in itself is
exciting the fact that it's such a rarity to occur
that you want to be there when it happens, I understand,
But the game itself is probably not going to be
(03:56):
exciting beyond that possibility. Yeah, well, so that a lot
of drama plays into this, and we'll talk more about
this in a bit, but this is I think what
caught our imagination so much is that people really feel
very strongly, uh some sports fans, uh fanatics, really strongly
about their teams and identify of them quite a bit.
(04:18):
So we wanted to kind of scratch at the surface
and see what we could find out about why people
are so committed to this, right, and then we're both
coming at this is kind of an outsider to sports
fandom except for synchronized except for your synchronized women take.
But I mean, the interesting thing about it is that
that while there is a tendency for non sports fans
to sort of categorize like non sports fans and then
(04:38):
sports fans, is this kind of alien creature and and
certainly it can be hard to understand what's going on
with obsessive sports fans especially, But you see people of
all walks of life that are either drawn into sports
or not. You see women, you see men, You see
see people varying lifestyles and ethnicities and political beliefs that
are either drawn into sports and off in hardcore or
(05:01):
it just like they don't have the gene for it
or something and exact. And there definitely needs to be
more studies on that, right, Why some people gravitate toward
it and some people don't. Yeah, it's always happening with
me too, since I since I'm not a sports person,
I Am not going to be able to talk about
sports with somebody. So they'll be somebody I've known for
a while, I've been hanging out with a little bit,
and then suddenly it'll come out that they're into sports
in a major way. And I'm like, WHOA, I would
(05:22):
not have have paid you for that, But it just
drives home how you just cannot anticipate who is a
secret sports fan and who is not. Well. This is
from a New York Times article called Sports Psychology, and
they say that psychologists have long suspected that many die
hard fans are lonely alienated people searching for self esteem
by identifying with the sports team, but a study at
(05:43):
the University of Kansas suggests just the opposite, that sports
fans suffer fewer bouts of depression and alienation than do
people who are uninterested in sports. I thought was really
interesting and it makes sense, right, because it's a communal
thing for the most part. Usually people are watching with
another person or a group of people, and it's a
social event. Yeah, Like people go to like you pack
(06:04):
a stadium full of people for a football game, and
everybody there, for the most part, has one thing in common,
and that is that they like football. Now and then
what maybe like half of them only have uh, only
have a fandom for one team in common. You know,
one half is maybe supporting one team, half the other.
But uh, but even that, that's a large group of people.
(06:25):
That are really into a particular thing, into a particular team,
and it's an instant you know, like an instant conversation starter, right,
you can always talk about like, hey, how are the
how are the the Triglodytes doing this this year? They're
doing pretty good. I think they're gonna beat the uh
the Cornicians in the finals, you know, like that, it's
instantly something you can talk about in the elevator or
(06:45):
or even in just in passion debate, Like I remember
reading um I think, yeah, I think I read this
where it was Hunter S. Thompson talking about being on
the Nixon campaign trail and at one point finding himself
alone with Nixon and these there too. You could not
ask for two men of such different case and quality.
But they were both big football fans, like huge football fans,
(07:07):
so they were able to talk about football. So the
mere fact that sports fan of could unite Hunter S.
Thompson and Richard Nixon like like that alone speaks to
the importance of this phenomena. I have this memory of
him his ashes being shot out of a cannon after
he passed. Is that right, yes, or at least that
was the plan. I cannot call that his wish was
for that anyway, Yes, absolutely, nut Sky, and you're you're right,
(07:31):
sports can be a great unifier. Um, but the question
is like, who is exactly watching you know, sports? Here
from an ESPN study in two thousand and nine of
two hundred and nineteen million US sports fans aged twelve
and up, they found that, you know, that's kind of
a du College age men are major sports TV consumers,
watching more than three hours of national sports TV each week,
(07:52):
and this group is more likely to be watching the
events alone actually on TV rather than in a group
among males twin five to forty nine with families and
careers to consider, sports avidity and sports news TV viewing declines.
This kind of makes sense, right because priorities, you know,
maybe you can't watch as many sports, and um, when
(08:14):
the male fifty and over demographic watches sports with others,
it's usually with women. ESPN says women fifty and over
constitute about thirty percent of his audience in this segment.
And then as far as women go, for females, ages
eighteen are actually the age of eighteen is a demarcation
line when sports really tends to drop off. So what
(08:36):
that means is that when probably a female quits playing
a sport, she may become disinterested in watching it on TV,
or she's watching it with the parents, with the family
as possible, yeah, or with friends. Yeah. Yeah, But that
age group, they do see sort of a fall off.
I guess what you're saying, leaving the house and then
you're maybe going off to encounter new friends with different
(08:59):
different tastes. Yeah, exactly. Women twenty five to thirty four
are the group that are at least interested in sports. Uh,
thirty five and older began to pick it back up,
and this really interesting. Women fifty and over become bigger
sports fans, and their viewing interests increases at a rate
much faster than men in this fifty and over group.
And I my grandmother was a huge sports nut. I
(09:21):
mean she could go through the Atlanta Brave if she could,
you know, talk about every single one of them and
talk about their personal lives. Um, I mean she would
gossip about it in addition to talking about their stats.
It was pretty amazing. But that sort of I think
this maybe makes sense in a way because, um, as
you get older, you're probably a little bit more engaged
in TV in sports as a diversion, right, and as
(09:46):
we'll talk about a little bit more, Um, you get
engaged to the point where you actually physically or physiologically
are mimicking the actions that someone on TV may be performing.
So if your mobility is limited and you see someone
out there on the field, it could really give you
a surge, right to be watching on this game making
(10:06):
like actually allow you to rise up from your chair
like you've been healed by a TV preacher. Yes, I've
seen that with my grandmother. Yeah, she's just yeah, she
just started running around touchdown dance. Yes, yeah, because yeah,
they're always performing touchdowns with the braves. But um, yeah,
she just had like knitting and just threw it down
like a football. I've also read the sports fandom plays
(10:29):
a huge role in the purchase of video game consoles
and video game industry because as popular as some of
these like role playing sci fi fantasy games have become, um,
it's it's really like the sports, the sports and the
war games that are really driving uh, the systems and
really getting the sales and the downloads, and and that
there's something that we discussed there is we'll talk uh
(10:52):
later on in this podcast. Ye war in sports there's
there's obviously something going on there. Well, and and let's
talk about in that in that context tribalism in modern society.
Some people would say that professional and college athletes play
a similar role for a city in the stylized war
on a playing field. Okay, so the theory goes, even
though professional athletes are mercenaries in every sense, their exploits
(11:15):
maybe recreate the intense emotions that some fans might feel
that you would probably expect in tribal warfare. So again,
the theory is sort of throwing it back to, you know,
on evolutionary basis, that this was something that we're hardwired
for and we can't help but become engaged in what
we see as tribal warfare. One team against another team. Yeah,
(11:39):
it's like our city against yours since we since uh
Cincinnati can't actually invade um Chicago, Uh, they can make
an at least have to send a team there to
battle the other teams. So it becomes kind of a
symbolic tribal battle between these two groups. Like scratching that itch,
that that that we have for for this kind of competition,
(12:01):
for this kind of of violent encounter. Yeah, that Robert C. L.
Deanie is a professor of psychology at Arizona State and
he has said, quote, our sports heroes are our warriors.
This is not some light diversion to be enjoyed for
its inherent grace and harmony. The self is centrally involved
in the outcome of the event. Whoever you root for
represents you. So then yeah, there's this idea that you
(12:24):
know again that that's you out there on the field. Yeah.
I mean you end up attaching your ego to these
these people on these teams and uh, and they're out
there fighting your battle for you. Yeah. And to the
extent that again, you're not just thinking, oh that that
that's kind of like me. Are I identify with that person?
Physiologically you're becoming very aroused. Um. This is from Charles Hillman,
(12:45):
a psychologist now at the University of Illinois, and he
found that Ardent football fans at the University of Florida
experienced extreme physiological arousal when they viewed pictures of Gator
football stars making game winning plays, but responded indifferently to
pictures of other athletes and teams. Wow, so these become
the heroes, These become the the the icons yeah, it's
(13:08):
not just a a sports athlete. It's my specific sports
athlete that I have been following for years that I
know all this biographical data about um quote. Individuals that
are highly identified with teams show extreme arousal compared to
the average fan amongst zealous male and female fans. Dr
Hillman found that the level of arousal, which was measured
(13:29):
by heart rate, brain waves, and perspiration um by galvanic response,
was comparable to what fans registered when shown erotic photos
or pictures of animal attacks. Wow, well there you got.
Everybody loves a good picture of an erotic animal attack.
I mean, I joke, but it actually it brings to
mind the the old like pulp men's magazine covers that
(13:52):
you would see where it would be like one bare
chested guy with like a handgun in a machete fighting
off a wild animal while a scatterly clad win the
woman uh coward in the in the cave in the
corner or something. You know. It's like, it's it's everything
in one shot. It's uh, it's masculine violence, it's uh,
it's the erotic vulnerability. It's it's wild animals and you know,
(14:14):
all all these things at once in one rush. It's
all the bodice ripping, flesh tearing excitement that you could
hope for. Yeah, and then you can have that, or
you can have football right right right, with the same
reaction right or same results. Say. Okay, So in a
moment here we're gonna talk about men and hormonal changes.
But right after this print. This podcast is brought to
(14:38):
you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel.
At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation.
Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers
to life's questions. And we're back and where we're gonna
look at the hormonal changes you in sports fans. Yep,
(15:02):
you're watching the game and the game, the game, the
game is changing you. That's right. I mean you're not
like going through like some sort of like male menopause
or anything. But James Dabbs, a psychologist at Georges At University,
tested saliva samples from different groups of sports fans before
and after important games um In particular, he actually took
saliva samples from twenty one Italian and Brazilian men in
(15:25):
Atlanta before and after Brazil's victory over Italy in Soccer's
World Cup, the Brazilian's testosser and rose in average of
twenty eight percent, while the Italians levels dropped by twenty
seven percent. I mean, these are really these are significant
spikes and drops. How come um sports fandom can become
(15:48):
such an addiction really with many people, you know, like
to the point where the classic sort of man story
is like the couple goes out to a nice dinner
and the guy sneaks will keep sneaking away to the
bar to see to update the game, right, to find
out what the game score is, you know, And this
puts that in a lot more context, Like he's not
just a guy that's really into something and it's kind
of a jerk about it to his date, but he
(16:09):
has he has biological needs that need to be met
during the date by updates on the World Series game.
Well yeah, I mean it's because what's the payoff if
if they're victorious, you get this high high that you
get to actually feel for yourself, right that as if
you won the game yourself. Of course, the town side
(16:29):
is the low low and um DR dabs actually gave
questionnaires to various sports fans. Um, you know, after the
team lost or one and they found that their self
esteem was absolutely correlated with how that team performed, so
they could have a very low opinion of themselves, um,
and a drop in testosterone if the team lost. See
(16:51):
that's in It makes me wonder about like fans who
support teams that generally lose, that have a really poor record,
but they continue to really loyal fan Like if if
these are gods and our heroes and our mythic figures,
then I guess it's more in keeping with like the
beliefs of the Vikings and you know, the idea that
all the Norse gods will die in the battle in
the Battle of Ragnarok, and I guess that's kind of
(17:11):
like fans of the Minnesota Vikings. Who's whose team? Um,
And according to the sports fans kind of dies in
the Battle of Regnarock regularly on a weekly basis. Well, yeah,
some of that too. Um. They're sort of going back
to saying that the fans are really empathetic. It's probably
not something that people normally seeing. When you see someone
(17:33):
screaming on our TV, you don't necessarily say, oh, that
person is just full of empathy. But they really if
you identify with that team even if they keep losing,
then you know you still have this hope no matter
what the data says, and you know that your team
could pull it off. Yeah, and you and you still
you do get a number of benefits out of it. Hey,
there's still the community and the fans. Yeah. I feel
(17:54):
like there's this sense of of like long endured suffering.
You get to talk about I'm I'm a on of
the Vikings or or or in any other team that
doesn't have a spectacular winning record, but you get to
say I'm i'm I'm I'm a fan of this of
this team, our team. Man, we're not doing so great
this year. I mean again, it's still an instant conversation starter,
and you you kind of get the prestige of being
(18:17):
a loyal fan, like not a fly by night uh
fair weather fan who's just really into the Braves or
whoever when they happen to be doing really well or
when they're going to go to the World Series. You're
not just leaping on board the on the train when
the when the party's going on. You're there during the
long suffering seasons when nothing's getting done well. This is
from Boston dot Com Carl Crawford. He was talking about
(18:38):
his experience and he said, in many cases, research has
shown that tribal connection goes back to a fans childhood
when parents or siblings encouraged him or her to root
for a particular team. Jonathan Gray, editor of Fandom, Identities
and Communities in a Mediated World, compared of the inheritance
of sports fandom to the way in which preference for
a particular soap opera tends to be passed down within
(18:59):
families from generation to the next completely. And at least
in my family, this is true. My grandmother had her
preference and she took care of us sometimes, and so
that's what we watched, right. Grace says, it's something that
you can all talk about, just like what you're saying.
By the same token, he said, love of the socks
or the bruins can be imprinted on a child at
an early age and grow for a a mirror imitation to
a way to pay homage to one's family or school
(19:21):
or neighborhood. Or love of the Pretzels, remember that that
high school team. That's right, the Pretzels. Yeah, but coming
if you can root for socks. I guess I've never
really understood it. There are they socks? You how do
you root for a sock? Let me root for something
like a Well, look, you can make a sock into
a sock puppet very easily, and then you can imagine
(19:42):
it it being having some sort of humanness to it, right,
I can get that. But you don't see fans doing that,
do you know? I would that they did. I might
get into that everyone's watching the game through a sock.
But but then there's like a Georgia Tech here in
in Atlanta. They have the yellow jackets, and I can
get behind the all right, yellow jacket, this's wasp Wasps
(20:02):
are really cool. They're neat predators, their sleek they have
they're packing a sting. All right, that's a cool mascot.
But then I see signs that are like go jackets,
Like how can you remove the yellow? Because now you're
just talking about jackets. I'm just picturing that's just being cool, man,
I'm just picturing a bunch of like Fozzie jackets. That's
the in lingo. Who's gonna win between a Fonzie jacket
and like a lion or even a badger Fonnzie's jacket,
(20:24):
Are you kidding me? Like Fonzie's jacket could beat a sock.
I could see that, but but not like an actual
sentient being. I don't. I don't know about that. I
think that you don't understand that the powers of Fonzie there. Perhaps, Yeah,
that would be an intense fight. Um. But as you
can see, there's a lot that is bundled up in
this issue. Let's see, here's another really interesting bit of
(20:46):
information that says the fans connection to the game includes
an emotional component from the amygdala, a memory component from
the hippo campus, and some empathy from the prefrontal cortex.
A subject feels some relation to the player or the
other fans on on his side. Some of the sensory
motor areas light up to as if the subject is
imagining himself as say, like the shooter in a basketball game.
(21:09):
I think that's amazing. Um. And a lot of that
actually correlates with what we found out about mirror neurons,
right right. So, mirror neurons are a class of brain cell.
They're found in several parts of the brains, and they
fire in response to chains of actions linked to intentions.
All right. So there's in the New York Times the
article cells that read minds. They found that when you
(21:31):
see somebody perform an action such as picking up a baseball,
you automatically simulate that action in your own brain. Okay, okay,
So I mean it's the it's the reason that we're
able to get into like even fictional characters. You know, Yeah,
you're reading what a character is doing, the actions that
that they're engaging in in on a certain level, you're
becoming that person. I actually read that experiment show that
(21:53):
when you read a novel you memorize positions of objects
from the narrator's point of view, which I thought, well,
that is amazing that you're creating this blueprint of his
fictional world. Wow. And that's I think that's especially true
in I mean, it depends on the writer. Some writers
are not exactly uh into giving you a whole lot
of detail. But take a novel like Alan robe Gerlaise Jealousy,
(22:16):
which it takes entire the entire book. This is gonna
people are gonna run out and buy this. When I
explained this, uh, the entire book is a gentleman on
a banana plantation, sitting in a room, staring out the window,
trying to decide in his own head whether his younger
wife is having an a fair with another plantation. And
so it's just a lot of it. Alan robe Relat
(22:38):
is really into the details, and this book is like
basically him just going over the details in the room,
the view from the porch, the stain on the wall
where he killed a centipede, and uh and and just
trying to figure out and not being able to because
he doesn't have enough information to actually come to an answer.
So the whole book is just his his mental anguish
(22:58):
over this unanswerable question and his observations of the room.
And certainly by certainly by the end of it. But
tim pages into the book, you already have this really
clear picture of the space. And even now I haven't
read it in years, but I can definitely picture that
room that that guy is setting in that I am
setting in. And that's another interesting thing. Doesn't use the
word he or the man or anything. Alan Rodul writes
(23:20):
this book as if you are the person, but without
saying you, he just describes He's leaving it open ended
in terms of coloring it the perception, right like you
get the raw data, right, Yeah. I was just thinking
to you about when we've talked about this before and
in different contexts, but when you went to a room automatically,
what you start seeing is actually your brain trying to
(23:42):
figure out like the dimensions of a room. You're not
necessarily perceiving it through your eyes, like your brain is
constructing it for you. So it would make sense that
if you're reading a text or you're watching someone play baseball,
that you would start to see all of these different angles. Um,
and even if you're playing pool, right right, I mean,
this is a game of mathematics. You're trying to predict
(24:03):
what's going to happen with the outcome. It's going to
be if you know, person A shoots this into that pocket,
well it comes. It reminds me again of pro wrestling,
though in this scenario pro wrestling too. In many cases
it's it's like one dude versus another dude in a ring,
all right, and there there's this stage battle that takes place,
and there are various scenarios that can go down. With
(24:23):
one on one fighting. You have like a an underdog
against a far more dominant oppressor. Sometimes he is squashed
by that dominant oppressor. Sometimes he manages to score a victory,
that rush of that underdog victory against overwhelming odds. In
other cases it's individuals that are they're tightly matched and
ability that end up having a very competitive battle. And
then in other cases it's like the the individual that
(24:46):
you're rooting for is like so overpowered that he's just
blowing through opponents with ease. And I can see as
a consumer of this particular media, you end up, you know,
if you put yourself in the shoes, uh, or in
the boots of the individual. Uh. You know, it's like
a simplification of so many things in one's life, Like, oh,
they're overwhelming forces in my life, but here's this dude
(25:08):
overcoming an overwhelming force that just happens to be wearing tiny,
shiny pants. Well, you know what the interesting part about
that is if you are, if you're more engaged by
the shiny pants, laced up boots person that you're identifying with,
then say your neighbor, you probably have more active mirror
neurons than your neighbor does, and you're more empathetic. Huh. Well,
(25:31):
I Lucha libre is is another thing I have to
mention real quick, this is the Mexican wrestling and they'll
have the big match where two opposing wrestlers, a good
guy and a bad guy. Is this some one where
they wear the crazy Yeah, the crazy mask. But you'll
have a technico and a rudo, a good guy and
a bad guy, and they'll fight each other in a
big match where the loser is unmasked. He loses his
mask and he has to reveal his face and his
(25:53):
identity of the world. And I've seen some American fans
who have who have complained about, oh, well, these are
always predictable. You always know that who's gonna win in
this particular match. And I was reading, uh, some commentary,
this may have been on the Death Valley Driver board.
But but someone was pointing out there was a little
more in touch with with Mexican fandom of Luca Libre,
(26:14):
and they pointed out, well, it's like a it's like
a play being acted out. It's like if you were
to go see a religious epic after acted out, be
that the Passion of the Christ or the Ramayana or something,
you know, some sort of big epic, the actors are
going to be different. But the but the ultimate message
is the same and that's what people really get into
the telling of that tale. And so with this particular match, yeah,
(26:36):
the the winner may not be in doubt, but the
tale being told is what people are connecting with. So
it's cathartic. Yeah, yeah, And I feel it's the same
way with with organized sports. And because certainly the same
situations I talked about, like a dominant force crushing its opponent.
Fans of really successful teams are very talented teams. They
enjoy that week after week. Oh man, we crushed the
(26:58):
Cornisians this uh, last Sunday, wasn't that amazing? Well not
only that too, you've probably I mean, you've got a
history with the Cornish pens Um. You know, maybe you
you're you and your family have followed them for years
and years, and you have all this biographical data that's
just matrix in your mind, and so you, yeah, of
course you feel like this is someone in your own
family that you're rooting for. And then if they're if
(27:19):
they're not very good, and suddenly they have that chance
to overcome the the the oppressor, if they you know,
they get and if they score that underdog victory, I mean,
that's when you go out in your tear stuff down
in the streets and you know, yeah, yeah, this is
a really interesting thing that we found out too. It's
about emotion and memory, and it's a study done by
Duke University. And I find it interesting for two reasons. One,
(27:41):
researchers at Duke University, we're trying to figure out an
ethical way to study overwhelmingly positive and negative emotions without
really putting the screws to someone and missing with their heads. Yeah,
because you don't want to go to prison for your
for your research. So they came up with the idea of, oh,
basketball fans. We've got Chappel Hill here and we've got
Duke University. Is there's an intense rivalry here. We've got
(28:03):
all these basketball fans. Let's get some vetted fanatics in here,
basketball nuts people, and run some tests and run some
m r I on them and see how they respond,
how their memory responds to these games. So they got
fans from both sides and they had them watched the
game the same game three times, and then they put
them in the m r I and they showed them
(28:24):
clips and right before someone was about to shoot, for instance,
they stopped the clip and then they tested their memory,
and what they found is that if their team had
been winning or this was a winning shot, their memory
was so much better than if it, you know, if
the person failed to get the basket in or whatnot.
(28:44):
And you know, the correlation is that your memory is
really going to be informed by your emotional state at
that very moment, which you know has all sorts of
implications and things like PTSD and other areas in our lives.
Who are we're going through? Which romatic experience or a
happy experience? The way that we remember sociramatic stress. Yes,
I was thinking public displays of affection for some reason,
(29:07):
did I say no? No, you said the right one.
I was imagining like sports fans that are so they're like,
oh my goodness, we want and they immediately smooched the
fan next to them. Oh well, yeah, yeah, I don't
know if that actually happens. It might happen. It might
happen if you're an American in Italy, because there's there's
always a lot of smooching and a lot of sports
going on. It's a nation of lovers. Yeah, so there
you have it. Sports fandom. Our attempts to sort of
(29:29):
understand it a little that will probably have to call
on you guys to give us a little more in
depth analysis from the sports fans themselves, because I know
some of you guys are sports fans and you probably
have some inside about this. So if you're listening to
this podcast and then you're gonna catch the big game
immediately after, or the or the or the weekend after, uh,
take some of this information with you, do a little
self analysis, let us know. Yeah, I also want to
(29:50):
throw this little tidbit out there too. Um and some
of this research about mirror neurons and sports, you know,
really putting yourself in in the other person's place. It
came up several times that this could be a really
good explanation for porn. Well, okay, I just thought i'd
throw that out there because I'm sure someone has thought
to themselves, why is porn like cantinent for humans? There
(30:12):
you go, okay, well we'll we'll think about that as well.
Yeah cool. Let me reach into the listener mail back
here and then a lot of couple of digital correspondences here.
First we heard from the listener Amanda Amanda Rights and says, Hello,
my name is Amanda, and I recently listened to your
podcast about imaginary friends and thought I would share a
recent experience with you. Like a lot of kids, I
had an amaginary friend when I was little. Her name
(30:34):
was Maria, and she was looking back apparently nondescriptive imaginary
friends go. She was a normal human little girl, a
little older than myself. I don't remember what happened to her,
but at some point, as I grew up, she simply
wasn't a part of my life anymore. That would be
fairly normal and not worth sending an email about, if
not for what happened next. When I was around thirty,
(30:54):
she abruptly made a short lived return to my life.
She had grown up and appeared to be in her
early to mid thirties, and informed me that she had
lost track of me all those years ago and was
dropping back into check on me. She then left again
after a few minutes, and I haven't seen her since.
I have no idea what this says about my mental
state at the time, but I used the event as
a starting point for my two thousand and nine in
(31:16):
a in O w R I m O novel Intrigue,
which turned out to be the first novel I completed
to have the great work. I always enjoy your podcast,
so yes, indeed, congratulations, I'm finishing that book and UH
and certainly I think this podcast will drop in November.
So if you have a novel kicking around in your
head and you really want to even wanting to write it,
(31:36):
maybe this is the time to do it. You can
check out just do a search for in a n
O w R, I M O or not National Writing
Month November you should be able to find some details
on that. Uh. And we have another listener mail here
from Derek. Derrick writes in and says Robert and Julie,
why I wouldn't go so far as to say I
still have an imaginary friend as an adult, My youthful
(31:58):
illusionary companion is still a presence in my life. When
I was a kid growing up as a military brat,
I chose as my imagination imaginary friend, the constellation of
Ryan Uh. Whenever he was in the sky, I would
talk to him and discuss my problems with him, And
obviously in my mind I still personify it as a hymn. Still,
when I find myself burdener stress, I occasionally look into
(32:19):
the sky and talk to my old friend. Another place
where I think you'll find a lot of people with
imaginary friend like behavior is in traditional role playing games
like Dungeons and Dragons. Um and again, for anyone who
posented me with this, I believe we have an article
on this. If you go to Houston Works stot com,
then search for Dungeon and Dragons. Dungeon Dragons in the
classic sense is like pen and paper to keep track
of the numbers rolling dies, and then everything else takes
(32:42):
place in your head as a as an imagine imagined
encounter of between you and your party members against you know,
demons and orcs and what within your skill set that
characters allotted. Right, Yeah, and not that I haven't played
you've played? Oh cool, Well I have played Boy back
in the day too. We'll have to do a podcast
on that anyway, um Derrick continues, is this. I've spoken
(33:04):
to many players at these games, and many have experiences
of being surprised at the choices that their characters may
despite the fact that they are, of course, are completely
in control of that character's action. Thank you so much
for entertaining me every week, Darren. And indeed, yeah, that's
it's kind of I remember in the The Imaginary Friends podcast,
we we briefly mentioned like fictional characters like as you're
writing them, and you kind of reach this sort of
(33:25):
surfboard point where you feel like you're not completely in
control of the board or the story or the character anymore,
and it's kind of propelled by its own energy and
you're at least partially aboard for the ride, and you
don't know what's gonna happen next. So um, I never
reached that point myself playing Dungeon Dragons because I most
of my playing was just like in junior high on
scout trips and stuff. Yeah, I played with my brother
(33:47):
as his friends. So I don't think I was able
to bors your character. It was like the train of treatment. Okay, okay,
so but I wasn't allowed to be like a wizard
or anything. Oh you had to be a treatment, right
and order to play with them. So I might have
some psychological issues from that that I not to work
out that. Yeah, that was kind of sexist. I was
(34:09):
always and I tried to see I was always a
necromancer or tried to be, of course, But you know,
we should what we should do is we should bring
in the Dungeon Master for an episode of stuff to
blow your mind and you get to be whatever you want.
You can be a warrior or a wizard. You know,
I'm about to try right now. I would like to
do this and the dungeon Master will guide us through
(34:31):
and alarmingly, you know, short dungeon I'm on board, all right. Well, hey,
if anyone else has anything to share with us, uh,
we'd love to hear from you. Be sure to check
us out on Twitter and Facebook. We are blow the
mind on both of those. And and again I feel
like I should stress if you haven't been to the
House of Works dot com website and a little bit,
(34:51):
do check it out because we have a brand new
homepage that's pretty amazing. Like it's just it's it's just
it's a lot more engaging than the preview is homepage.
It's a union. Instantly are hit with like a number
of different articles and uh, it's organized in the really
cool yea, the organization is great. There are different tabs
where you can click on if you're always wondering I
want to win. The newest article on Austa worts is
(35:13):
there's a tab or new articles so you can see
them as they pop up. Yeah, so check that out
as well. And uh, you know, I'm about to give
the call out for our email address, but we just
got a piece of physical mail and the actually actual
snail mail snail mail, and it's pretty awesome. I'm going
to try to describe this post card. Um, it looks
to be like a Taiwanese wellness spot and which reflexology
(35:34):
is being practiced, and it's a sort of photo realist shot.
I guess you could go. It's pretty great. And it
comes to us from Sean and it says Hi, Robert Julie,
greeting from Taiwan. I've been listening to you since science stuff.
Thank you for producing a very educated show. So thank
you Sean, um that we really appreciate that. And Matt Our,
(35:55):
producer appreciates that as well. Yeah, and if you actually
want to send us snail me, I'm not going to
give the address out here because it's you got it. Yeah,
I don't know. I mean I wouldn't know unless it
wasn't only well, we'll first let me say that you
can find the address on the contact page so Worth
dot com. But if you want to write it down
all cuickts if you are old fashioned and you happen
to have a pen and paper. Here it is three
(36:16):
five oh Peachtree Road to northeast Sweet Atlanta, Georgia, three
oh three to six USA, and nothing living. Seriously, yeah,
unless it never turns out, unless it's imaginary, imaginary living. Yeah.
I guess we're welcome. Yeah, okay, And so the other
sort of traditional night to get in touch with us
(36:36):
would be to send us an email at below the
mind at houstuff works dot com. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
House to Work staff as we explore the most promising
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow
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