Think Again

WHAT RED SOX FANS LIKE ABOUT YANKEES FANS
WHAT YANKEES FANS LIKE ABOUT RED SOX FANS
Then we randomly assigned half of them to go the extra step of
reflecting on the arbitrariness of their animosity:

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Think and write about how Yankee fans and Red Sox fans
dislike each other for reasons that are fairly arbitrary. For example,
if you were born into a family of fans of the rival team, you would
likely also be a fan of them today.
To gauge their animosity toward their opponents, we gave them a
chance to decide how spicy the hot sauce sold in the rival team’s stadium
should be. The backstory was that consumer product researchers were
planning to do taste tests of hot sauces in baseball stadiums. People who
were randomly assigned to reflect on the arbitrariness of their stereotypes
selected less fiery hot sauce for their rival’s stadium. We also gave them a
chance to sabotage a rival fan’s performance on a timed, paid math test by
assigning harder problems, and those who considered the arbitrariness of
their stereotypes picked easier questions for the rival fan.
People weren’t just more sympathetic toward a single fan—they
changed their views toward their rival team as a whole. They were less
likely to see their rival’s failure as their success, their rival’s success as a
personal insult, and criticism of their rival as a personal compliment. And
they were more likely to support their rival team in ways that would
normally be unthinkable: wearing the rival team’s jerseys, sitting in its
dugout at games, voting for its players in the All-Star Game, and even
endorsing the team on social media. For some fans, it was almost like
breaking a religious code, but their comments made it clear that they were
rethinking their stances:
I think it is pretty dumb to hate someone just based on the sports
teams they enjoy supporting. Thinking about that makes me want
to reconsider how I feel about some supporters of teams that I
dislike.
If someone hated me because of the team that I loved, it would
feel unfair. Almost like a form of prejudice because they are
judging me based on one thing about me and hating me for that
reason. After feeling these thoughts, I may change the way I
interact with Red Sox fans.

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The team they support is not necessarily indicative of who they
are. Even though they are wrong.
We’d finally made some progress. Our next step was to examine the
key ingredients behind the shift in fans’ views. We found that it was
thinking about the arbitrariness of their animosity—not the positive
qualities of their rival—that mattered. Regardless of whether they generated
reasons to like their rivals, fans showed less hostility when they reflected on
how silly the rivalry was. Knowing what it felt like to be disliked for
ridiculous reasons helped them see that this conflict had real implications,
that hatred for opposing fans isn’t all fun and games.