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07 Sep 08
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win or lose, rooting for a team has its benefits. Work by Daniel Wann, a psychologist at Murray State, has found that fans of a local team tend to be happier than nonfans (and happier, too, than fans of non-local teams) - less prone to depression, anger, and stress.
The reason, he argues, is simple: being a fan automatically places a person in a community, giving him people to talk to, something to talk to them about, and events at which to do it. The bond can be a first step toward a deeper friendship, or it can simply lend a comforting sense of belonging
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self-confident people tend generally to do better at life: they get better grades, make more money, have more friends, even live longer. And the self-confidence doesn't have to be earned to make a difference.
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suggest that there might be a broadly shared psychological boost from our stubborn inability to separate our own accomplishments from those of a group
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what is particularly striking is the almost comical extent to which fans appropriate the successes and failures of their team. Like a stadium full of stage moms, they see the accomplishments of their team as reflections of themselves.
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new work suggests that this kind of success on the field can shape a positive mind-set that affects the rest of our lives. Studies have shown, for example, that fans are not only happier when their team wins, they feel smarter, more athletic, luckier, and even more attractive. Other research shows that happy, self-confident people tend to be more successful - at work, in school, in any realm they're competing in - suggesting how the successes and failures of our sports heroes become our own.
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