A University of Washington professor has come up with a 10-minute test to measure the fervor of your Seattle Seahawks fandom.
Psychologist Anthony Greenwald's test is designed to measure the strength of one’s support for a team over another.
The online test is an adaptation of Greenwald’s 1998 Implicit Association Test, which aimed to uncover a person’s unconscious beliefs and hidden biases. In its latest version, the participant is asked, times over, to respond quickly to questions about the self and both the Seahawks and the Denver Broncos.
At the end of the fast-paced test, the user’s fandom is given a grade of strong, moderate, slight or little to no preference.
“For sports teams, the test mostly produces results that people agree reflects them,” Greenwald said.
Greenwald urges fans to take the test twice — before and after the Super Bowl — to see if their grade changes. Fans tend to identify more strongly with a team after a win, according to a theory known as Basking In Reflected Glory (or BIRGing), Greewald said. The opposite is also thought to be true, according to the Cutting Off Reflective Failure theory, or CORFing.
“I think on average the reflected glory theory is probably right, but I don’t think that applies to everyone,” Greenwald said. “I do think the strong fan is someone whose attachment is pretty unshakable. It’s really a test of your strength as a fan that if you still show a strong association after the team has lost, then you are a real fan.”
