The appeal of the underdog

When people observe competitions, they are often drawn to figures that are seen as disadvantaged or unlikely to prevail. The present research tested the scope and limits of people's support for underdogs. The first two studies demonstrated, in the context of Olympic matches (Study 1) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Study 2), that observers' support for a competitor increased when framing it as an underdog. The final two studies explored mechanisms underlying support for underdogs. Study 3 showed that participants attributed more effort to a team when they believed it to be an underdog, and perceptions of effort mediated liking. In Study 4, participants reading a hypothetical sporting event supported a team with a low probability of success and labeled it an underdog unless it had greater resources than an opponent, suggesting that low expectations by themselves do not engender support if positive outcomes are not seen as deserved.     

The Advantage of Disadvantage: Underdogs in the Political Arena

Political candidates are often labeled as underdogs, either by the press or themselves. This paper explores connotations associated with the underdog label in the political arena. We argue that being labeled an underdog has a strategic advantage because it is associated with positive qualities, particularly likeability. The current studies demonstrate that partisan supporters prefer to see their favored candidate as an underdog compared to people not aligned with the candidate, and underdog-labeled entities are perceived to be warmer, and no less competent, than frontrunners. Discussion focuses on the advantages and risks of carrying the underdog label in the political arena.     

Rooting for (and Then Abandoning) the Underdog

Although people prefer to associate with winners, there is also a strong desire to support the lovable loser or underdog. In 4 studies, we demonstrate the underdog effect and its delimiting conditions. In Studies 1 and 2, participants rooted for the underdog in judgments of athletic, business, and artistic competition. In Study 3, participants watched animated clips of struggling and nonstruggling geometric shapes. The results showed that participants showed more rooting, sympathy, and identification with struggling shapes than with nonstruggling ones. Study 4 identified conditions under which people abandon the underdog, showing that participants rooted for the underdog only when both self‐relevance and consequences were high. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

How Power States Influence the Persuasiveness of Top‐Dog versus Underdog Appeals

Although both top‐dog and underdog positioning appeals are widely used in marketing and advertising, little is known about which strategy is more effective in persuading consumers. By introducing a sense of power, a social variable that is inherently relevant to the nature of the top‐dog versus underdog classification, we propose that consumers' responses to these two appeals are influenced by their psychological experience of power. Specifically, low‐power consumers will respond to top‐dog appeals more favorably because associating with top dogs facilitates power restoration. In contrast, high‐power consumers will respond to underdog appeals more favorably because supporting underdogs facilitates power expression. In four experimental studies, we provide consistent support for our main predictions as well as the underlying processes. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate the differential effect of consumers' power states on their attitudes toward top‐dog versus underdog appeals. Providing process evidence, Studies 3 and 4 identify boundary conditions under which the basic effect was eliminated. These findings contribute to the persuasion literature and power research and provide important implications for positioning strategy and advertisement development.     

Against the odds: academic underdogs benefit from incremental theories

An implicit theory of ability approach to motivation argues that students who believe traits to be malleable (incremental theorists), relative to those who believe traits to be fixed (entity theorists), cope more effectively when academic challenges arise. In the current work, we integrated the implicit theory literature with research on top dog and underdog status to predict self-efficacy in an academic context. To examine our predictions, we assessed college students’ (N  =  165) implicit theories of mathematical ability and manipulated their underdog versus top dog status in a math competition. We hypothesized that holding an incremental (vs. entity) theory would interact with competition status (underdog vs. top dog) to predict mathematical self-efficacy. When in an underdog position, incremental (vs. entity) theories boosted students’ mathematical self-efficacy. Moreover, a mediated moderation model revealed that the experience of less helplessness accounted for greater self-efficacy in mathematical ability among academic underdogs with incremental (vs. entity) theories. Implications for teaching practices are discussed.     

Both sides of the story: Narratives of romantic infidelity

We applied a narrative identity approach to the study of romantic infidelity. In Study 1, participants provided narratives of the moment they discovered their partners' infidelity. In Study 2, participants were prompted for narratives of their unfaithful actions. In both studies, measures of personality traits, forgiveness, empathy, and self‐esteem were administered. Narratives were coded for themes of redemption (bad beginnings, positive endings) and exploration (engaging with the experience's emotional implications). After controlling for relevant covariates (e.g., story length), participants who formed redemptive stories of their partner's infidelity evinced higher levels of forgiveness and lower levels of empathy (Study 1), whereas participants who disclosed redemptive stories about their own infidelity demonstrated decreased forgiveness (Study 2). Across studies, exploratory narratives corresponded positively with conscientiousness.     

Reproduction of cultural values: a cross-cultural examination of stories people create and transmit

Narratives are one of the oldest and universal forms of communication in human societies. In the present research, the authors hypothesized that narratives play an important role in the reproduction of cultural values. To test this idea, Study 1 examined the contents of stories created by American and Japanese participants for their reflection of individualistic and collectivistic values, and Study 2 examined whether information consistent with cultural values would be more likely to be retained and passed onto others. The studies found that American participants created stories that reflected individualistic values and retained more individualistic information than collectivistic information when they transmitted a story to others. In contrast, Japanese participants created stories that reflected collectivistic values and retained more collectivistic information than individualistic information when they transmitted a story to others. These findings support the idea that narrative communication is an important part of cultural reproduction mechanism.     

The Animal = Male Hypothesis: Children's and Adults' Beliefs About the Sex of Non–Sex-Specific Stuffed Animals

The Animal = Male Hypothesis, a variation of Silveira's People = Male Hypothesis (Silveira, 1980), was examined. In Study 1, children ages 3–10 years and adults told stories about a gender-neutral stuffed animal, in Study 2 children ages 5–6 years told stories about 3 neutral and 3 feminine animals, and in Study 3 children ages 5–7 years told stories about 2 neutral animals, observed an adult model use feminine pronouns to refer to an animal, then told stories about 2 more animals. Dependent variables were the pronouns participants used to refer to the animals and what sex they believed the animals were. Results showed strong evidence for an animal = male bias in all 3 studies among children and adults of both sexes on both dependent measures. There were few sex-related differences. The modeling intervention was not successful in reducing the bias.     

Narrating the other: Self-other agreement of affective qualities and manifest events among personal life stories and the vicarious life stories provided by informants

Life stories are psychosocial constructions of one’s past, present, and future. Vicarious stories are mental representations of others’ life stories. Across two studies, we examined self-other agreement among features of participants’ personal and vicarious stories and whether agreement corresponded with relationship closeness. Agreement was quantified via the affective qualities and manifest events of key scenes. Targets’ personal and informants’ vicarious stories demonstrated agreement in tone, but not in redemption or contamination (Study 1). The manifest events within informants’ vicarious scenes corresponded with participants’ personal life stories 25% of the time, and this agreement increased with greater relationship closeness (Study 2). Our findings support the notion that an understanding of the important events in someone’s life may facilitate interpersonal closeness.     

The influence of stereotypes on decisions to shoot

Using a videogame to simulate encounters with potentially hostile targets, three studies tested a model in which racial bias in shoot/don't-shoot decisions reflects accessibility of the stereotype linking Blacks to danger. Study 1 experimentally manipulated the race-danger association by asking participants to read newspaper stories about Black (vs. White) criminals. As predicted, exposure to stories concerning Black criminals increased bias in the decision to shoot. Studies 2 and 3 manipulated the number of White and Black targets with and without guns in the context of the videogame itself. As predicted, frequent presentation of stereotypic (vs. counterstereotypic) targets exacerbated bias (Study 2) and—consistent with our process account—rendered stereotypes more accessible (Study 3). Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vicarious life stories: Examining relations to personal life stories and well-being

We examined relationships between vicarious life stories for mothers and distant others, personal life stories, and well-being. Participants described chapters in their mothers’ and personal life stories, self-rated chapters on emotional tone and meaning, and completed well-being measures. In Studies 3 and 4, participants described chapters for distant others. In Study 4, mothers’ personal life stories were collected. In Studies 2–4, chapters were coded for redemption, agency, and communion. Qualities of vicarious and personal life stories were positively related, except for ex-boy/girlfriends (Study 4). Vicarious life stories were less positive and were less consistently related to well-being than personal life stories. Vicarious life stories for mothers were positively related to both participants’ personal life stories and mothers’ personal life stories.     

Story Perspective and Character Similarity as Drivers of Identification and Narrative Persuasion

Identification with a character is an important mechanism of narrative persuasion. In 2 studies, the impact of character similarity on identification was pitted against that of story perspective. Participants read stories in which a lawyer (Study 1) and a general practitioner (GP; Study 2) had a conflict with another character. Perspective was manipulated by describing the events as experienced and narrated by the lawyer (GP) or their opponent. In Study 1 (N = 120), 60 participants were law students, in Study 2 (N = 120) 60 were medical students. Both perspective and program of study influenced identification, which mediated the impact of perspective on attitude. If participants felt highly similar to the professional's opponent, the mediating effect of identification was blocked.     

Backbiting and bloodshed in books: short-term effects of reading physical and relational aggression in literature

The current research consisted of two studies examining the effects of reading physical and relational aggression in literature. In both studies, participants read one of two stories (containing physical or relational aggression), and then participated in one of two tasks to measure aggression. In Study 1, participants who read the physical aggression story were subsequently more physically aggressive than those who read the relational aggression story. Conversely, in Study 2, participants who read the relational aggression story were subsequently more relationally aggressive than those who read the physical aggression story. Combined, these results show evidence for specific effects of reading aggressive content in literature.     

Distinguishing Hope from Optimism and Related Affective States

Three studies examined the conceptual and psychological differences between hope and related mental states. In Study 1, participants provided definitions of hope as well as optimism, want, desire, wish, and the non-anticipatory state of joy; in Study 2, participants wrote about a time when they had experienced each of these states. These definitions and stories were coded for a number of psychological features that were then used to distinguish the different states. Study 3 mapped the differences among the six mental states into a multidimensional conceptual space. Overall, hope is most closely related to wishing but distinct from it. Most important, hope is distinct from optimism by being an emotion, representing more important but less likely outcomes, and by affording less personal control. The importance of combining a folk-conceptual perspective with a more traditional analysis of appraisal for understanding differences among psychological constructs is discussed.     

Telling losses: Personality correlates and functions of bereavement narratives

How and why do bereaved individuals talk about their loss? What are the personality correlates and social consequences of different kinds of bereavement narratives? Two studies were conducted to answer these questions. In Study 1, participants from online bereavement support groups and memorial websites wrote bereavement narratives. Participants high in Conscientiousness told brief, factual narratives; participants high in Neuroticism told self-focused contamination narratives; and participants high in Extraversion told narratives for social reasons. In Study 2, undergraduate participants responded to twelve narratives from Study 1. Participants felt more sympathetic concern but more social awkwardness and less acceptance towards contamination narrators compared to redemption narrators. The role of personality in the telling and reception of bereavement stories, and social support after loss, is discussed.     

The Psychosocial Construction of Parenting: An Examination of Parenting Goals and Narratives in Relation to Well-Being

In two studies, we examined the implications psychosocial constructions of parenting hold for an understanding of well-being. In studies 1 (N = 504) and 2 (N = 98) participants provided a list of personal goals and narratives about the experience of becoming parents, respectively. In both studies, measures of well-being were also completed. Goals were categorized on the basis of whether they contained reference to parenting as well as agentic and communal motivation, whereas stories were coded for themes of exploration and resolution. In Study 1, the proportion of parenting goals related positively with well-being, although this effect was rendered non-significant after accounting for the communal motivation of parenting goals. In Study 2, themes of exploration and resolution in parents’ narratives positively predicted well-being. Collectively, these results provide intimation of parenting’s “meaningfulness” within the current socio-cultural context.     

The relationship among expressions, labels, and descriptions of contempt

This article reports 4 studies that demonstrate that the contempt expression is reliably associated with situations that elicit contempt and that the inability to label the contempt expression reflects a problem with its label or concept and not with the relationship between its expression and emotion. In Study I, the labeling of contempt in fixed-choice judgment tasks did not occur because of a process of elimination. In Studies 2 and 3, the contempt expression was associated with situations that elicit contempt, but participants did not label the situations in an open-ended response. In Study 3, participants also more reliably labeled the contempt expression with situations rather than with labels and did not generate contempt situations from labels. In Study 4, participants reported using, hearing, and reading about contempt the least among 7 emotions tested.     

Moral virtue and practical wisdom: theme comprehension in children, youth, and adults

The authors tested 3 hypotheses about the relation of moral comprehension to prudential comprehension by contrasting comprehension of themes in moral stories with comprehension of themes in prudential stories among third-grade, fifth-grade, and college students (n = 168) in Study 1, and among college students, young and middle-aged adults, and older adults (n = 96) in Study 2. In both studies, all groups were statistically significantly better at moral theme comprehension than prudential theme comprehension, suggesting that moral comprehension may develop prior to prudential comprehension. In Study 2, all groups performed equally on moral theme generation whereas both adult groups were significantly better than college students on prudential theme generation. Overall, the findings of these studies provide modest evidence that moral and prudential comprehension each develop separately, and that the latter may develop more slowly.