Every year, March Madness gives us an underdog story and millions flock to a momentary allegiance with a college they could not locate on a map. In the past it has been George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth University and Butler, and this year we eagerly await a new momentary hero.

So why do we love underdogs?

Well, no matter whether you are Republican or Democratic, work for Microsoft or Apple, or are a janitor or CEO, you most likely see yourself as somewhat of an underdog.

In America, especially compared to other countries, the underdog narrative is an honorable and respectable narrative. From the American patriots in 1776 to the George Mason Patriots in 2006, the Cinderella story, as it is specifically called in the NCAA tournament, has always been an attractive one.

So with underdogs you have 1) a narrative people like and 2) a narrative people see themselves in. Is it any wonder people want to cheer for underdogs? It’s like cheering for yourself.

These serve to energize us with the hope that people like ourselves can do anything. People like to believe that those above us aren’t that great after all, and that people like us are just as good, if not better than the people in power.

In fact, the narrative is so strong that Neeru Paharia, of the Harvard Business School, and colleagues named a psychological effect after it, simply “the underdog effect.” They found that companies gain goodwill from consumers when companies present themselves as a group that has overcame disadvantages through sheer determination. This effect was stronger for people who personally related with the narrative and stronger in cultures (e.g., America) where the narrative was more prevalent.

This narrative dominates American culture not only in sports but in all other popular media. From Luke Skywalker to Cinderella, Americans crave stories about underdogs. Even the more privileged characters in storylines, such as the elite James Bond or billionaire Tony Stark, end up in situations where they must overcome disadvantages through sheer determination.

Even politicians are forced to conform to the narrative, regardless of reality. This is a challenge that proved difficult for Mitt Romney and may have greatly have hurt his campaign.

The underdog narrative doesn’t only sell fiction, politics and sports, it also sells nonfiction books in my field of social science. The nearly unparalleled success of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” owes a lot of that success to the intuitive appeal of his “10,000 hours doctrine.” Gladwell concludes that if someone spends 10,000 hours at something they can become an expert, implying to readers (who don’t carefully read Gladwell’s other more nuanced chapters) that they can make it just by trying hard.

Hip Hop artist Macklemore of the “Thrift Shop” fame even opens his chart-topping first album with a song called “Ten Thousand Hours.” He directly references Gladwell’s name in the song, chants “Ten thousand hours, felt like thousands hands, they carry me,” and then raps “Take that system!”

Oddly enough, many political pundits on both sides of the spectrum have argued (mostly for political reasons) that such a dream is fading in America. But psychological research shows that when beliefs we value are threatened, we try to find ways to defend such beliefs and keep the belief alive. Believing that an underdog will win in Atlanta this year might be a good way to keep alive that wonderful American underdog dream.

This article was originally published in the Providence Journal and can be read here.

~Troy Campbell~

Sign up for A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior. It’s not only FREE and open to everyone, but will surely keep you amused for the next six weeks.

Sign up for A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior. It’s not only FREE and open to everyone, but will surely keep you amused for the next six weeks.

Recently I had the opportunity to interview actor Peter Dinklage (of Game of Thrones fame) as part of the Rubin Museum Brainwave series, which pairs big names from pop culture with cognitive researchers to see what comes of it. My intention was to see if I could draw some connections between the craft of acting and the field of social science. (As it turned out, I was fairly unsuccessfully. For now.)

I asked Mr. Dinklage several questions to this effect, which he answered in more or less the same way: “No.”

First, I asked whether the fact that he plays such a conspiratorial, dishonest (albeit relatively heroic) character has any impact on his daily life. “No,” he said, nicely. He explained that he finds it easier to play characters who are very different from himself.

Next I asked if he felt people related to him differently, again, given that his character was remarkably crafty and deceptive. Again, “no.” He gave people credit for being smart enough to differentiate between the person on screen and the one before them.

Finally, I explained an experiment I conducted long ago on people’s experience tasting beer. In this experiment, we had people sample a few beers, one, called the MIT brew, had balsamic vinegar in it. The people who had no knowledge of the vinegar actually liked the beer better; those who knew about the addition hated it. Basically, their preconceptions overwhelmed their experience and made it much worse.

There were two issues at play here: first, that beer is hard to evaluate in general, as there’s no clear scale for judging it. We can say we like or dislike it, sure, and we may even talk about its smooth or hoppy character, but those are simply aspects of the beer without definitive value. Second, expectation changes our experience of things. When there is difficulty in the evaluation of something, expectations can alter experience even more.

To this end, I asked him if he felt acting was ever like wine or beer—something difficult to judge objectively in the face of preconceptions. I explained that before I’d had a chance to watch the show (research!), I had been told that he was the best actor in the series. So, did he think my experience of the show might have been shaped by my expectations? One last “no,” and he went on to explain that acting could certainly be evaluated. At the same time he admitted that there were well-known and well-regarded actors who he thought were terrible (he didn’t provide names). I thought this made my point, but I didn’t say so.

So are there any lessons for acting in social science? I would say there are, but that perhaps actors themselves are too close to their work to appreciate the irrationality in it, and how the majority of people experience entertainment.

Collectable experiences are defined as unique, unusual, novel, or extreme experiences. Instead of viewing the Super Bowl blackout of 2013 as a frustrating experience, view it as a “collectable experience” and you will enjoy it more.

That’s what researchers did one New Years Eve in Times Square with a similarly frustrating event. Spectators were increasingly nervous about the oncoming snow. However, when the researchers reframed the night as “the first New Years Eve snow in recent history,” spectators enjoyed the event much more as they became part of a unique story—a collectable experience.

We all want to be part of stories and to collect experiences to tell stories about. Some of us want this more than others (known as people high in productivity orientation), but all of us are looking to some degree to build our experiential resumes full of unique and fascinating experiences (e.g. staying in Ice-Hotels, going to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, eating at a weird restaurant).

Last night, millions of Americans collected an experience. An experience that other generations did not have and will not have. This blackout was a good thing, especially if we can get ourselves to think of it as a good thing. For happiness is often found simply in how one looks at things.

 ~Troy Campbell~

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, just email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

My best buddies and I have a tradition of going on a one-week ski trip once a year. We’ve been doing it for most of the past decade. The idea is that it’s just us guys on the mountain, enjoying the good company and snow. We cherish these moments and can’t wait for the week to arrive every year.

The problem is that once we land at our ski destination, time seems to go by at light speed. The week ends amazingly quickly and when we look back at our time together it seems even shorter. I know that “time flies when you are having fun,” but is there a way to perceive the week as longer?

—Avi

Given the way you phrased the question, the answer is simple: Take your wives with you. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

But more to the point: I suspect that one of the reasons that your vacations seem so short, both in the experience and in your memory after the fact, is because the days of skiing are so similar to each other that they blend together in your memory into one very long day rather than a weeklong vacation.

On your next trip, try to make the days more differentiated from one another. Try snowboarding one day, take a lesson on another day, or just change your ski equipment from time to time. You could take a day off from skiing and go sledding or meet the locals. The point is that even if some days wind up with activities that you enjoy less at the moment (like bowling, for example), the ability to differentiate that day from the other days will help you categorize the vacation as a series of distinct experiences instead of one big glob of skiing. This way, you will get more joy from the memory of these experiences.

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Dear Dan,

A few weeks ago in your column you suggested spinning a penny as a way to make decisions between two similar options. You argued that having to face the moment of truth makes us realize what we really want as the outcome.

This approach might be useful when deep down inside it is clear which way you want the penny to fall, but what about decisions where what you desire is not good for you? For example, when the decision is between chocolate cake and fruit. In this case, you know very well how you want the coin to fall, and flipping the coin doesn’t seem to be very useful.

Any advice on how to deal with such conflicts between the head and the heart?

—Gavin

You’re right. The coin trick is indeed only useful for cases where the two options are of the same type (two cameras, two movies, etc). In your example, one option is more tempting in the short term (chocolate cake) while the other is better in the long term (fruit). In such cases we should not trust our gut feelings to drive us to the best decisions.

Looking around, it is easy to see that we often succumb to temptation and take the option that has short-term benefits and long-term downsides (in your example, this is the chocolate cake). The basic problem is that when we make such decisions we are often “under the influence” of the chocolate cake. Its closeness blinds us to the comparative long-term benefits of a piece of fruit (or, simply not eating the cake). So what can we do? Every time you face such decisions, pretend that it is not about what to do now but what you would like to do a week from now. For example, think of the choice between chocolate cake and fruit for dessert as a decision that you are making for exactly one week from today. When the choice is framed this way, you might be more able to override the influence of your current emotional state and pick the option with long-term benefits.

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Dear Dan,

I just bought a pair of basketball tickets and I plan to treat my friend to an afternoon of slack-jawed wonder as Kevin Durant dismantles our hometown Raptors. Here’s the thing: My friend is very generous and semiwealthy. If I tell him the tickets are on me, he’ll insist on paying…but if I tell him the tickets were free (the only way he’ll let me off the hook about the price), I’ll lose that weird cachet that comes from giving an expensive gift. What to do?

—Gil

Here is what I would do: Take your income per month (for simplicity, say $10,000) and divide it by the cost of the two tickets (again for simplicity, say $200). Now multiply this number by the number of hours you work per month (let’s say 160), and you get the numbers of hours that you need to work to pay for the tickets (3.2 hours in this case). Now, tell your friend “it took me more than 3 hours of hard labor to get these tickets.” (After all, you might not want to tell your friend exactly how much you make.) With this kind of framing, not only will your friend not be able to pay for the tickets, but he will also appreciate your investment in him and your friendship to a higher degree.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

When faced with a decision (e.g., like what to do on a week night), our final decisions are based less on what options are available, and more on what options we consider.

The options that come to mind most easily are the options that form our consideration set, and then we choose from that set. The problem is that often our consideration sets are limited—we are tired, we are in a “week night” state of mind, or we have only seen advertisements for certain things lately.

To increase your happiness, keep a running “to do sometime” list of things you want to do. That way when your consideration set fails to include a highly desirable option, you can simply turn to your this list for an idea.

For the original research on this topic, see: http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/Courses/Spring2000/BA269D/Negungadi90.pdf

~Troy Campbell~

Why do shoppers get so crazy and sometimes so irrational on Black Friday? Troy Campbell visits the local mega-mall on Black Friday to find out.

http://youtu.be/sQZO-qSIejM

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, just email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

My son has been in New York since he was 18, when he started attending The Cooper Union as an art student. Now he is 35 and afraid to leave NYC to move West. He hasn’t made the moves he would need to further his career in photography. He has had many successes—but not financial ones. We’ve offered him time here on the West Coast to develop his art (and hopefully a career). He doesn’t like living in NYC and says he would love to move west, but people in New York seem to believe that it is the only place to get a job. Is there any advice or constructive approach you can offer to make his options clearer?

—Barbara

First, it’s delightful that you want your son to move closer to you rather than stay on the other coast, and I am sure that he feels the same.

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Hi Dan,

Let’s say you’re very hungry and you plan to eat two sandwiches. One is very delicious and the other isn’t as good. Which one should you eat first?

—Pablo

One of my college friends had kids many years before anyone else in our group was even considering children, and he used to give the following advice (mostly unsolicited): “Think,” he used to say, “about how you like to eat. There are some people who like to eat reasonable food three times daily, while others would prefer to save their money and eat mediocre food most of the time but occasionally have an amazing meal.

“If you’re one of the second type, go ahead and have kids, because life with kids isn’t all that fun for the most part, but from time to time they bring incredible joy. And if you identify with the first type, you may want to rethink the kids idea.”

Now, I am not sure that this metaphor bodes well for kids, but in terms of food it certainly works. As a thought experiment, it asks whether you prefer to focus on the maximum amount of pleasure in any given experience or the average pleasure.

In the first case, you should eat the better sandwich first so that the height of your initial joy comes from the combination of your hunger and the superior quality of the sandwich. (As Cervantes wrote in “Don Quixote,” “Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”) Of course, you will sacrifice pleasure at the end of your experience. On the other hand, if you’re aiming for a consistent experience, eat the so-so sandwich first. With this method, the initial joy will be lower, but the end of the experience won’t be as much of a contrast.

Personally, I prefer to focus on the most joyful part of the experience and eat the best sandwich first, ignoring folk wisdom to “save the best for last.” Plus, this way I might be less hungry by the time I get to the so-so sandwich and may eat a bit less.

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Dear Dan,

Given all your research on decision making, do you now find yourself making better decisions?

 —Oded

Maybe, possibly, sometimes. I suspect that my gut intuition hasn’t improved much with my knowledge about bad decision-making. On the other hand, when I get to carefully consider my decisions, I think I’m able to avoid some of the decision traps that I study. I should also point out that much of my research starts with observations of my own irrationalities—so, without my own mistakes, I might have to look for a different career.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.