I’m guilty of booing sometimes, and to me the thought process seems to be:
1) The bad performance makes me feel bad.
2) The crowd is similar to me, and is my in-group in the situation.
3) Therefore, the bad performance is making everyone else in the crowd feel bad.
4) I empathise with the crowd more than the performers, since the crowd is a constant in-group I can identify with through the entire event, while the performers are fleeting and on average neutral.
5) Therefore to signal my anger on behalf of the crowd’s suffering, I boo at the bad performer, who has slid from neutral to Enemy.
This is an awesomely clear explanation of the thought process. I can see how “willingness to take on an enemy” or “willingness to speak for everyone” may be deciding factors in who boos and who doesn’t. It also explains why booing only happens in large crowds (at sufficiently small events, everybody is in the same group). Cheers!
I’m guilty of booing sometimes, and to me the thought process seems to be:
1) The bad performance makes me feel bad.
2) The crowd is similar to me, and is my in-group in the situation.
3) Therefore, the bad performance is making everyone else in the crowd feel bad.
4) I empathise with the crowd more than the performers, since the crowd is a constant in-group I can identify with through the entire event, while the performers are fleeting and on average neutral.
5) Therefore to signal my anger on behalf of the crowd’s suffering, I boo at the bad performer, who has slid from neutral to Enemy.
This is an awesomely clear explanation of the thought process. I can see how “willingness to take on an enemy” or “willingness to speak for everyone” may be deciding factors in who boos and who doesn’t. It also explains why booing only happens in large crowds (at sufficiently small events, everybody is in the same group). Cheers!