Misconceptions

[REAL 1]

Originally Posted by Tommy

OK, I admit that my original post on this thread was asking people to behave in a way that is contrary to human nature. That came to me as I noted that the debate it inspired has come down to the usual, “Mine is better than yours,” and “No it’s not!” It turns out this behavior is well documented and described by a concept called “Social Identify Theory.”

A classic example of social identity is when a person chooses to be a fan of a sports team, for example the Alabama Crimson Tide football team. The person may or may not have ever set foot in Tuscaloosa, but they come to identify with the team and view its successes and setbacks as their own. As people like the feeling of success more than setbacks, the teams that accumulate the largest number of otherwise unassociated fans are those with the longest history of winning performances.

An important aspect of social identity is efforts by fans to make their team look better than others. An unfortunate side effect of this is that many fans feel that they can make their team look better by making the other teams looks worse. This is why it hard for the fans of Alabama’s arch rival to cheer for the Tide even when a Tide victory would benefit both teams.

I believe much of what we have seen between Evan and many others is a simple case of social identity behavior. Each of us, myself included, has associated with a brand of car that looks like a Shelby Cobra and was manufactured after 1970 (henceforth referred to as a Cobra replica). Every time one of us says something positive about the brand we identify with, all the others see that as an effort to diminish the brand they identify with. The common response is to attempt to diminish the brand of the offending person. If we were arguing about sports teams, we might get to settle it for a few weeks at the end of each season. But as there is no objective way to declare a winning brand of Cobra replica, we are left with endless arguments that will never be won.

So the bottom line is this. I withdraw my request that people stop claiming their favorite brand of Cobra replica is better than all the others. I think it’s a stupid thing for them to do, but it would be even stupider for me to think they could ever change. We are only human after all.

Correct. What is better to you not necessarily better to me. Like I said to begin with define "better".