Arjun Khemani

Sports fans that root for their hometown team unconsciously use a subtle way to always keep their identity high regarded. This is how we they do it:

When their home team wins, they say, “We beat them 3-0!”.

When their hometown/favorite team loses, they say, “They [speaker’s hometown team] lost 2-0 that night.”
Or, “Yeah, [hometown team name] lost that match pretty bad.”

Do you notice the subtle change in language proud fans or hometown members use?

Yes, it’s the pronoun.

This ingenious way often comes unconsciously to the one making it. It’s just the way that person behaves because he or she keeps their pride high.

Sure, there are exceptions, for example maybe those who may pride themselves as true supporters. They will equally take their part in the team’s losses. But for the majority of other supporters who are not really true in a way but only support the team because they are associated with the team, their hometown perhaps, they will happily call the team on their own accord (“we”) when they win. But will probably assign the team unrelated to them (“They” or “[Hometown] lost”) when the hometown loses.

This does not stop on sports, I’m afraid.

This same mentality can creep up into our social circle. We don’t hang out with people who may have been perfectly good friends but are not our rank now. So as to indicate if we interact with them we assume that others will assume we are like them (at their level). So we stay away, interacting with people who will make ourselves be seen in similar good light and high regard.

This constant desire for high regard of ourselves in our fellow society’s eyes also is the cause for most blame. We are widely susceptible to be on the lookout for false ways to put off the blame away from us when we or our team messes up. But when we pull something off, we jump to show everyone that we were the ones behind the success (although we certainly may not be at most times).

In this way, separating ourselves from those who are looked down upon (example: those who are to blame for a fault—however falsely at times) and keeping close contact with high regard individuals or just staying away from low regard individuals so as to maintain not a downtrodden perception of others; we subtly always are on the quest of keeping our prides high (especially in the eyes of others).

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Credit to Robert Cialdini for some of the information behind this article.