I think there’s something here, but I still don’t find the link from the far view to underdog support entirely convincing.
Why do we think why would we want to signal niceness in the far view? And why should signaling “niceness” involve supporting the underdog? (I mean this question in the evolutionary sense: why would our intutions of niceness correspond to supporting underdogs, and why would we value that signal?) And why would it allow us to portray ourselves as steadfast allies, if we don’t actually have any connection to either of the parties involved?
Two alternative (not necessarily much more convincing) accounts, both based on the idea that in the far view, we don’t need to think about the costs of our opinions so much, but which are otherwise somewhat incompatible with each other:
(1) If we know we won’t actually have to do anything, supporting the weaker party is a cheap signal of strength. Only the strong would back a loser. (Maybe this supports your account, by giving a reason to signal “niceness”?)
(2) If we know we don’t actually have to get involved, we just go with whoever we actually have the most sympathy for. (This is like your “niceness” explanation, but sans signaling.) Two versions:
(a) Most people just have more sympathy for weaker parties. Why? I don’t know. (Not much of an explanation then is it?)
(b) People sympathize with the side most similar to them. (This would predict that the strong will generally have less of an underdog bias, and that if the underdog is sufficiently weak, then average types may switch to backing the favorite. This doesn’t seem entirely implausible, but I have no idea whether it’s contradicted by any evidence out there already.)
Why do we think why would we want to signal niceness in the far view? And why should signaling “niceness” involve supporting the underdog?
If you think that the stronger side is morally superior, your decision is trivial, and doesn’t signal anything. If one side is stronger while the other is morally superior, then supporting the strong side would be choosing individual best interest over communal best interest, which is like defecting in the prisoner’s dilemma.
Thanks, I’ve edited the post to take account of some of these criticisms.
(1) If we know we won’t actually have to do anything, supporting the weaker party is a cheap signal of strength. Only the strong would back a loser. (Maybe this supports your account, by giving a reason to signal “niceness”?)
People want to signal that they are both nice and strong. The edited post explains why we want to signal that we are nice.
(2) If we know we don’t actually have to get involved, we just go with whoever we actually have the most sympathy for. (This is like your “niceness” explanation, but sans signaling.) Two versions:
I don’t like this as much; rather than using evolutionary theory, it attributes the effect to something happening pretty much at random, i.e. there is no survival advantage to sympathizing or to just randomly supporting weak parties. But evolution is not a perfect optimizer, so this could be true. If this explanation were true, we would expect some racially and/or culturally distinct groups to support the stronger party. If this trait is universal in humans, it could be a fixed neutral mutation, but that would strike me as suspicious.
Lastly, I’ll admit that I am more sure that I have explained why the results don’t contradict each other than why they are the way they are. I would not be that surprised if Yvain’s post had lied about the underdog bias.
I think there’s something here, but I still don’t find the link from the far view to underdog support entirely convincing.
Why do we think why would we want to signal niceness in the far view? And why should signaling “niceness” involve supporting the underdog? (I mean this question in the evolutionary sense: why would our intutions of niceness correspond to supporting underdogs, and why would we value that signal?) And why would it allow us to portray ourselves as steadfast allies, if we don’t actually have any connection to either of the parties involved?
Two alternative (not necessarily much more convincing) accounts, both based on the idea that in the far view, we don’t need to think about the costs of our opinions so much, but which are otherwise somewhat incompatible with each other:
(1) If we know we won’t actually have to do anything, supporting the weaker party is a cheap signal of strength. Only the strong would back a loser. (Maybe this supports your account, by giving a reason to signal “niceness”?)
(2) If we know we don’t actually have to get involved, we just go with whoever we actually have the most sympathy for. (This is like your “niceness” explanation, but sans signaling.) Two versions:
(a) Most people just have more sympathy for weaker parties. Why? I don’t know. (Not much of an explanation then is it?)
(b) People sympathize with the side most similar to them. (This would predict that the strong will generally have less of an underdog bias, and that if the underdog is sufficiently weak, then average types may switch to backing the favorite. This doesn’t seem entirely implausible, but I have no idea whether it’s contradicted by any evidence out there already.)
If you think that the stronger side is morally superior, your decision is trivial, and doesn’t signal anything. If one side is stronger while the other is morally superior, then supporting the strong side would be choosing individual best interest over communal best interest, which is like defecting in the prisoner’s dilemma.
Thanks, I’ve edited the post to take account of some of these criticisms.
People want to signal that they are both nice and strong. The edited post explains why we want to signal that we are nice.
I don’t like this as much; rather than using evolutionary theory, it attributes the effect to something happening pretty much at random, i.e. there is no survival advantage to sympathizing or to just randomly supporting weak parties. But evolution is not a perfect optimizer, so this could be true. If this explanation were true, we would expect some racially and/or culturally distinct groups to support the stronger party. If this trait is universal in humans, it could be a fixed neutral mutation, but that would strike me as suspicious.
Lastly, I’ll admit that I am more sure that I have explained why the results don’t contradict each other than why they are the way they are. I would not be that surprised if Yvain’s post had lied about the underdog bias.