While cycling to school, John found a brand new “sport psychology” textbook in the middle of the road. There was no hint as to who owned it or how it got into the street, so he brought it home. Before he shipped it off to the person who bought it from him on Amazon (not in College Station—he checked), I flipped it open and found a passage full of marvelously ridiculous acronyms.

Here are a few choice snippets from the thousand-word section titled “Basking in Reflected Glory.” I swear I’m not making this up.

In the first of three studies, Cialdini and associates sought support for the existence of a phenomenon known as basking in reflected glory (BIRG) by covertly observing the apparel worn to introductory psychology classes by students from seven universities with major football programs. … Students clearly tended to wear more school-related paraphernalia on Mondays after wins than after losses, a finding that was interpreted as lending support to BIRG.

…

Hirt and his associates concluded, “BIRGing is a strategic impression management technique whereby individuals raise their esteem in the eyes of others.” The authors were also quick to point out that BIRGing is not confined to fans at athletic events; they are convinced that it would also manifest itself in any social context (such as national identity, political party, ethnic group) involving strong personal allegiances.

…

A phenomenon related to BIRGing that has received less attention but is of interest is cutting off reflected failure (CORF). CORFing is an image protection tactic that allows individuals to avoid negative evaluation from others by distancing themselves psychologically from unsuccessful people, teams, or other entities. As such, BIRGing represents an image enhancement technique and CORFing is an image protection mechanism, a subtle but important difference.

Yet a third phenomenon … is known as cutting off future failure (COFF). Wann et al. found that contrary to expectations, persons belonging to successful groups were less likely than people belonging to unsuccessful ones to publicly announce their team affiliation.

…

Given the tremendous importance of spectators at athletic events in terms of economics and social-psychological dynamics, research on BIRGing and CORFing is likely to continue in an attempt to better understand this important aspect of audience effects. As for COFFing, it has not generated much research to date.

Is it me, or does “CORFing” sound like a deviant sexual practice, possibly involving poop?

Okay, so the bit about people who root for consistent losers being more likely to talk about their affiliation was surprising, but come on, am I really supposed to take a passage about BIRGing, CORFing, and COFFing seriously?

A technical point: “BIRGing” is redundant in the same way “ATM machine” and “PIN number” are. I could understand it if adding the -ing made these acronyms sound less silly…

As a side note, do you think I could wrangle a C on a Sport Psychology exam just by BS-ing about the “tremendous importance of spectators” to “social-psychological dynamics”, or would I actually have to memorize the lingo?

Tags: acronyms, psychology, silly, sport psychology, textbook

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