← Something You Should Know
Something You Should Know
How Your Sense of Taste Really Works & Why Sports Fans Care So Much
00:48:47
Why food tastes different to everyone, how taste changes over time, why sports fans feel so connected, plus surprising insights on driving sick.
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- [00:01]
Ad Host / Advertiser
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- [01:18]
Mike Carruthers
Today. On something you should know how driving when you have a cold can be more dangerous than driving. Then a look at all the things that influence how food tastes.
- [01:31]
Beth Kimmerle
How does packaging, how does marketing, how does color or storytelling literally change how something tastes? As researchers, we know that people can rate exact same products higher if the marketing feels more premium.
- [01:46]
Mike Carruthers
Also, who's more likely to wake up grumpier? A man or a woman? And the Psychology of Sports Fans why do people identify so strongly with teens and athletes?
- [01:59]
Aaron CT Smith
We know from research fans are twice as likely to change their marriage partner as they are their sporting team allegiance. But what's beautiful about sport is that that love tends not to diminish. Unlike our romantic partners with whom we get bored.
- [02:13]
Mike Carruthers
All this today on something you should know. You know the New year has this way of making people rethink things. You've got ideas, skills, something you've thought about selling for a long time. The problem usually isn't the idea, it's actually starting something. That's where Shopify comes in. It gives you everything you need to sell online or in person without having to be some tech expert. Millions of people already use it, from big big brands to first time business owners. You can build a store fast with their templates and their AI tools help you write product descriptions, headlines, even edit your photo. Marketing's built in too, so you can reach people through email and social media. And when things start working, Shopify scales right along with you. In 2026. Stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com sysk go to shopify.com sysk that's shopify.com sysk hear your first this new year with Shopify by your side. Something you SHOULD know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today. Something you should know with Mike Carruthers. So if you had a cold or the flu, but you had to go somewhere, would you still drive there? I bet you would. Most people would. But maybe you shouldn't. And that's what we're going to start with today on this episode of Something youg Should Know. There's a warning from a study that suggests that driving with a cold or the flu can be even more dangerous than driving drunk. Researchers compared the reaction time of cold sufferers against the reaction time of people with alcohol blood levels above the legal limit. The results found that those with a cold had lower alertness levels than those who were over the legal limit. The drivers who had a cold had a tendency to follow too closely and took longer to stop the car on command. It seems that when your body is fighting an infection, memory and movement can be impaired, regardless of the severity of the illness. And if you add a sneeze on top of it, you're really increasing the risk because a sneeze can take your eyes off the road for as much as three, three full seconds. And that is something you should know. Isn't it interesting how some people love certain foods and other people just hate them? And even with the foods we like, some we really like, while others are just, they're okay, they're fine. And if you recall, there are probably foods you didn't like when you were younger that now you do. So how did that happen? Why does our sense of taste change over time? And how do things like packaging, color, presentation, and expectation affect how a food tastes? Well, here to explain all this is Beth Kimmerle. She's a sensory science expert, meaning she tastes food for a living. She's founder of Attribute analytics, which is a platform that helps companies that make packaged food use taste data to drive product success. She's also written four books about chocolate and sweets. Hi Beth. Welcome to something you should know.
- [05:55]
Beth Kimmerle
Hi Mike. Thank you for having me.
- [05:57]
Mike Carruthers
So you taste food for a living? I mean, I know your job entails much more than that, but that Is part of it that you taste food for a living? Which sounds pretty appealing to me, but explain what it is you do exactly.
- [06:11]
Beth Kimmerle
Oh, great. Great question. In the food and beverage industry, there are folks like me who are practitioners of sensory evaluation, otherwise known as taste experts. There's folks that specialize. So there's coffee tasters or chocolate tasters or tea tasters, but we're at the expert level. So folks like us have our tongues often insured because of the value they bring to our work. In my case, I not only have my tongue, but my olfactory bulb insured, much like famous people have, you know, body parts insured. I don't know, Keith Richards hands I'm imagining are insured, or Ronaldo's legs. We assess food products on behalf of the food industry and supply data around taste and texture and aftertaste, aroma. All really, really important things that the food industry, food and beverage industry wants to know.
- [07:18]
Mike Carruthers
And so I would always would have assumed that because taste is so individual that. That it isn't a science so much as it's because you may say, something tastes great, and I may say, that's the worst thing I ever ate. Aha.
- [07:35]
Beth Kimmerle
Yes. So for most of us, our taste buds detect five basic t taste. But there's these other elements, these other things that you're. That you're referring to, that. That are at play. So aroma, memory, even, Even expectation can alter how we perceive taste. And sometimes it takes over and does much of the work. So if I were to say to a room full of untrained tasters, hey, describe this chocolate. And they're all tasting the same chocolate just like you're saying, you know, some may describe a feeling of nostalgia, and some may focus on how it feels in their mouth and what we call the melt rate. While others might describe taste like, you know, they might detect tastes like bitter or sour. And that's because taste isn't just a chemical reaction in our body. It is a perception shaped by our life experience. And so what we do with sensory analysis, it is a science, and it involves using trained human tasters and a methodology. So we transform aroma, taste, texture, and aftertaste into a language that we can use to generate structured and usable what we call empirical data. So when people. When people talk about, hey, how are you able to do that? If you think about it, we're not interested in subjective words. We are what sommeliers are to wine. We are to food because we have this lexicon and have tasted so many food products that we can really understand or detect what we call the flavor, real food.
- [09:27]
Mike Carruthers
So can you turn it on and off? Because you must have the same feel things that I have about memories about food and certain foods you like or don't like. Do you turn it on and off?
- [09:39]
Beth Kimmerle
It's, that's an incredible question because so, so taste memories are emotional, right? They're power, they're powerful. And we're oftentimes chasing these experiences, right? It's not, we're not, we're not thinking about them as a flavor. You, you grab an item off the grocery store shelf because it reminds you of that experience that you had, mostly those good ones. And so, so we can, you can turn it on and off and, and, and it's the hardest thing to train somebody to do because in our lives today, Mike, we go through life liking and disliking, liking and disliking things online. Liking and disliking, you know, thumbs up on, on your text messages. And so you have to divorce yourself from liking or disliking and only use objective language. And it's, it's incredible. And that's what, that's what sensory evaluation is. This ability to be able to use this objective language and not, and divorce yourself from, from liking or disliking. And there's certain things that help you do it. So we don't look at things in, in packages, right, because packages can influence our, or presentation, can influence how we perceive taste. And, and we are trained to respond almost like robots or machines, so that we can utilize this, this portion of our brain that, that, that can give us data or, or objective information.
- [11:14]
Mike Carruthers
So I have heard, and I think we have all heard this notion that taste is primarily smell, is that true or not?
- [11:22]
Beth Kimmerle
It is true. That's 100% true. So if you were to hold your nose and eat a, let's call it strawberry jelly bean, so you're, you're, you're not using your, your nasal cavity. It might, it's going to taste off or flat just because you're only tasting sweet. So aromas are really the indicate. Aroma is the indicator of taste and the ability to taste. If your nasal cavity is blocked, you know, if you're sick, much of food, flavor disappears. And so that's the proof that taste buds aren't, you know, they're just a starting point. And aroma plays into taste heavily. And it's really aroma plus taste that give us flavor.
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Mike Carruthers
And when people like or dislike food, as you said, we could have memories from childhood, there could be other subjective factors, but Objectively, do people like or dislike food? It's just that I just happen to like it and you just don't. And that's the beginning and end of it.
- [12:29]
Beth Kimmerle
So some of these differences have to do with how many taste buds we have on our tongue, or papillae, as they're. As they're called. And even like, our saliva chemistry can amplify or alter flavor perception. You know, genetics, all these. All these things come into play if one person likes something and another. Another person doesn't like. Again, you know, it could be memory influencing. It could be. It could be things like age or medication or illness. There's so many things that go into taste, but really, we have found that repeated exposure, social context, and positive influences or experiences can really help retrain our palate. So if you know somebody who doesn't like something, you. You could work with them. And we see this often in, like, let's. Let's call it bitter foods. Or even think about the trend in super sour candy with kids. You know, 25 years ago or 35 years ago, kids might have spit out super sour candy because it was too sour, but they got trained with these experiences and, and. And now they've learned to enjoy those foods.
- [13:48]
Mike Carruthers
Is that it? And here's what I mean. Like, if you give a kid a sip of beer or whiskey, which you shouldn't do, it's probably illegal.
- [14:00]
Beth Kimmerle
No, probably not. It's probably a bad idea, Mike.
- [14:03]
Mike Carruthers
But if you did, they're gonna go, that's the worst thing. Tastes like cough syrup. It's just gonna be horrible. They're not gonna like it. Ten years from now, they could be drinking it and liking it. So is it just because they were exposed to it enough times, or could their tastes have actually changed and now they actually like it when then they didn't?
- [14:25]
Beth Kimmerle
Maybe a little bit of both. So again, it's this repeated exposure, right? So that was their first sip, and now they're on their. Their tenth. Or maybe they're off to drinking abvs, who knows? But it's also social context. So if. If you think about the social piece of food, right, we're oftentimes with others and experiencing food, whether it's beer or candy, in social settings. And so we can change. And some of that has to do with the way our taste buds change over time. If you think about what a baby needs and wants in flavor, it's sweet. And they're really looking for the sweetness of mother's milk. And that's how our taste buds are work. So this question is about where we are in our, in our, in our life and then how much have we been exposed to this product, whether it's beer or otherwise? What's the social context in which we've enjoyed the product? And have we really enjoyed the product? Has it been a positive experience? Or is everybody around us shared this, this same drink and frowned?
- [15:42]
Mike Carruthers
I want to ask you how and how possible and likely is it to change someone's taste so they like a food that maybe they don't like now or, you know, give up a food that they do like that maybe they shouldn't? I'm talking with Beth Kimmerly. She is a sensory science expert.
- [16:00]
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- [16:29]
Aaron CT Smith
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- [16:32]
Mike Carruthers
So now get two snack wraps plus fries and a medium soft drink for just $8 for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California and for delivery. So, Beth, if you wanted to work with a child or get someone to change their taste away from a food or towards a food, how do you do it?
- [16:54]
Beth Kimmerle
That's a great question because if you as the parent can create what they call this positive experience, repeated exposure, create a social context. So let's just back up from that. Well, what does that mean? You introduce foods repeatedly, right? So repeated exposure means you're showing up with broccoli and the Mac and cheese at the same time, and then at some point you're eliminating the Mac and cheese and you're just constantly exposing the quote, unquote fussy eater to the item that you wish them to enjoy and that you're, you're showing them how to eat it yourself. So when we talk about this social context piece of it, it's really showing them that you can have a positive experience with it instead of just putting it on the plate. You're picking up that piece of broccoli, you're showing them how delicious it is and, and training them through your actions as opposed to, to just putting it on the plate. So yes, there's a, there's a method to working with eaters and it's also around being less emotional, strangely enough, and, and, and less reactive and, and, and Just. And just exposing.
- [18:21]
Mike Carruthers
We all like sweet, right?
- [18:24]
Beth Kimmerle
I have, I have never met anybody who is. Is just totally opposed to sweet. I do know people who don't like sweets in general. They sort of, they. They sort of run towards savory. But I don't know anybody who's just shut down from sweet. And that is an evolutionary. There is an evolutionary reason for that, and that is because sweet, let's call it carbohydrates sweet. Sweet keeps humans alive. Sweet as a taste keeps humans alive or have. Has kept humans alive. And so it's a really, really important basic taste. It is, it is of the more important, especially again for children and babies, because sweets probably the first taste, that baby's taste.
- [19:16]
Mike Carruthers
Yeah. Well, I've always been interested in this idea of portion control in the sense that I've noticed and I've kind of done experiments with myself on this. When a plate of food is put in front of you, there's a tendency to want to eat the food that's on that plate. And if you get a smaller portion of food, there's a tendency to want to eat that and that that'll be enough. Just like what you said about, you know, if you give me a big piece of pie, well, I'll eat the big piece of pie. If you gave me a smaller piece, that's probably fine too. But we're seeing that portions get bigger and bigger. And when you see a plate of food in front of you, you tend to want to eat the plate of food.
- [20:00]
Beth Kimmerle
Exactly. And I think what we call those in our industry is what are the expectations and how do those affect how we perceive taste? So you're talking about large and small. We oftentimes talk about appearance in terms of size and shape and color. There's so many different ways we can, what we call, modulate these expectations because they really prime the. The brain. There's a quote that says, we eat with our eyes. If you think about that in terms of. You're talking about portion control. But we look at how does packaging, how does marketing, how does color or type, style or storytelling literally change how something tastes? As researchers, we know that people can rate the same product, the exact same product higher if the marketing feels more premium. Right. So their expectation is elevated and they like that product better. Or even consumers, if something doesn't feel authentic or if they notice it's broken, meaning, have you ever gotten a cracker or a cookie out of a package and it's not whole, then that will shift your perception? Well, it doesn't taste as good.
- [21:29]
Mike Carruthers
Well, it does seem. And I imagine everybody's had an experience where their taste has changed over time. Like when I was a kid, I used to drink a lot of soda. I can't drink a soda now. I just. It's so sweet and syrupy. And because I stopped, I just. I realized that they weren't healthy, and I backed off and got to the point where now I don't want one.
- [21:54]
Beth Kimmerle
Yeah. And that's that interesting thing about how you had repeated exposure. Right. At some point, you drank a lot of soda and you had the social context or experience that trained your palette to think that that was a good thing. And then at some point, whether. Whether it was the social context, learning how much sugar is actually in a traditional soda, or seeing people around you drink alternatives. Right. Again, you know, our taste can change, and that has to do with sort of this learned information. And then sometimes taste sensitivity changes with age. Right. Or illnesses or medications, and they can. That can dull or distort flavor perception. I would. If somebody put a traditional can of soda in front of me that had either cane sugar or corn syrup in it, and I wasn't in tasting mode, and it was a. It was a choice. I wouldn't. I prefer water. I think that has to do with social contracts. We learned more about sugary drinks. But I also, because I worked for, you know, I've worked for companies like Starbucks along the way, and I've learned to drink unsweetened coffee because of coffee cuppings. And really, like, you know, that. That was that exposure thing, learning to enjoy foods that we maybe initially disliked.
- [23:28]
Mike Carruthers
Well, I think people like to think that they know what they like and they like what they like. But as you were saying, we are so susceptible to marketing and like, you know, if the cracker is broken, I mean, the things that influence what we like or don't like are seem from what you're saying. I mean, there's a lot of things at play here that way under the radar.
- [23:53]
Beth Kimmerle
Oh, 100%. I see. Because I work with professional tasters, I hear all the time memories that drive preferences, which I find really interesting. Like, people cannot divorce themselves from things like this is this tastes just like the bread I grew up with. Or my grandmother used to make something that was just like this, or I had a medication. You know, the memories are such a force. And, And. And, you know, companies try to translate, you know, those. Let's call them collective memories into terms like just like homemade or just like grandma used to bake. I find that interesting because with those memories sometimes comes very emotional reactions. Joy, you know, fear around medication. Oh my gosh. I. This cherry flavor tastes like this Luden's cough drop that I had when I had scarlet fever. I mean, on and on. And it's. We can't. When you're talking about under the radar, there's. It's so embedded in us that sometimes we don't even know they're there until we taste that thing again. And it's like walking into a portal. Or I call, like, I call it a time machine. Right. Because we can't access them until we taste that thing again.
- [25:20]
Mike Carruthers
Well, this is fun because it's a topic I think everybody thinks about, especially when they're eating, you know, why they like what they like and they don't like that thing that other people seem to like. And I really enjoy hearing how you do your job and you can turn it on and off like that. I've been talking with Beth Kimmerly. She is a sensory science expert, founder of Attribute analytics, and she's the author of a couple of books about sweets and chocolate. I'll put a link to her chocolate book in the show notes. Thank you, Beth. This was great.
- [25:51]
Beth Kimmerle
Thanks, Mike. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for the great questions.
- [25:56]
Mike Carruthers
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- [26:23]
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- [26:58]
Mike Carruthers
Why does being a sports fan matter so much? For some people, it's not just entertainment, it's identity. They follow a team year after year. They know Every player, every statistic. They wear the jerseys and the hats. They even talk about the team like they're part of it. They don't say they won, they say we won. Others don't latch on to teams so much. They follow individual athletes, tennis players, golfers, fighters. And they ride every win and loss right along with them. So what is it about sports that turns spectators into loyal, emotionally invested fans? Why do we care so deeply about games played by people we've never met? And what does that say about how our brains are wired? Well, that's what my next guest studies. Aaron CT Smith is a professor of management at Newcastle Business School at the University of Newcastle, and he's author of a book called the Psychology of Sports Fans. And he's here to explain why sports fandom is such a powerful and very human force. Hi, Aaron. Welcome to something you should know. Thanks very much, Mike.
- [28:10]
Aaron CT Smith
Appreciate being on.
- [28:12]
Mike Carruthers
So what is it about sports? What is it that drives people to become such loyal, devoted fans?
- [28:20]
Aaron CT Smith
People like me see a connection between sport as a kind of religion and now, of course, we've been talking about sport as religion forever. But what's interesting now is that there's a new series of evidence from fields like cognitive psychology and neuroscience. And it seems that the brain doesn't really care whether, you know, religion is supernatural or secular. You know, what happens in the brain during worship and during fandom are kind of similar. And it's because the brain's hardwired to believe and to believe strongly. To have, you know, strongest form of belief, of course, is faith. And the ability to have faith also means that sport gives us a kind of opportunity to lose ourselves in something bigger than us and experience what for many of us, I think, is. Is really true belonging. And that that might be one of the, I think the greatest consolations for feeling a bit trivial in a world that's kind of easy to feel marginalized and inconsequential in. So for me, this isn't just about sport. It's really about the brain's need for faith to be connected to a tribe, our search for meaning. And, you know, sometimes that just happens to involve watching people chase a ball. I think that's why across human history and civilization, you know, sports proven to be inevitable.
- [29:47]
Mike Carruthers
One of the things that I find striking is it's one thing to be a fan of a team and, you know, wear the hat, wear the shirt and all that, but there are also fans of teams who have this. Hate's kind of a strong word, but they don't like other teams, like, you know, the Yankees and the Red Sox or the, you know. You know what I mean? It's not only do I like this team, I really hate that team.
- [30:15]
Aaron CT Smith
Right. And that's connected directly, of course, to our sense of tribal identification. And it is amplified also by the nature of the way our brains work. We are connected to that tribal sense of association. And so it's not just sufficient for us to bond around our own team, but also bond around a common enemy. And so that sense of rivalry, you know, whether it's, you know, Duke and North Carolina, army and Navy, or. And all of this is about what connects us to our team, is also part of what disconnects us from other tribes and fans.
- [31:01]
Mike Carruthers
I've always been curious why sports fans pick the sport they do and pick the team they do. I mean, I used to play baseball, Little league baseball, and so I was a very big baseball fan when I was younger, but I played the sport, so I kind of identified with the guys on the team. But my wife's a hockey fan, big Kings fan, but she's never played hockey. She's never. But that's the sport that she gravitates to.
- [31:30]
Aaron CT Smith
The actual exposure to sports and our decisions to become fans of one team or another is not much of a decision, as it turns out, based on the research. For people of our generation, perhaps, and going back in the past, the biggest impact was our families, specifically our fathers. But the cultural connections to regions and areas in particular sports can often be quite tenuous. You know, might have been a big brother or sister. It might have been an early exposure in order to create a social connection with a group we wanted to be part of. It might have been connected to a particular regional cultural affiliation with certain sports, depending on where you grow up in the world today, it's changing, though, of course, where young people today are not necessarily the same kinds of fans that older generations have been witcher fans for life. I mean, a good example is that we know from research, fans are twice as likely to change their marriage partner as they are their sporting team allegiance, you know, over the course of their. Their lifetimes. But what's beautiful about sport is that that love, you know, tends not to diminish. You know, unlike our romantic partners with whom we get bored. And it's part of it that is. Is because of. Of all of the. Not just psychological payoffs, but all of the neurochemical and hormonal responses that come because we feed the. The brain's pleasure pathways as a consequence of indulging in sport. So in a sense, going back to your original question, it doesn't really matter who we support. It's the consequences of that support which give us the sense of belonging and the deeper meaning. And our brains then come to the party by triggering a cascade and avalanche of what neuroscientists call happy hormones.
- [33:33]
Mike Carruthers
One of the things that I notice is that there's like a spectrum, right? There are people who are die hard fans. They know all the stats, they know all the players, they know everything. At the other end of the spectrum, there are people who couldn't care less about sports. And then there are plenty of people in various points along the middle where they go to some of the games, they kind of follow it on tv. And I wonder why people are where they are on that spectrum.
- [34:05]
Aaron CT Smith
The jury's still out. In terms of research about exactly whether certain individuals have a greater propensity for fandom, it appears that they might well be because of their desire for a strong identification. And it also appears that people become more strong in their identification when they need that psychological reward. Because that sense of identification leads to positive structure, meaning and community. And many fans do become deeper fans over time as they find that genuine lifelong friendship and emotional support and the sense of resilience that comes along with being part of a social identity with their community. As for why certain individuals gravitate towards certain teams and then forge the strength of relationship probably has something to do with our need for two different and competing tensions. One is a desire, of course, to belong to something, to be part of something bigger. So we're all trying to be part of a tribe, but at the same time, we're also all trying to be distinctive and different. And sport gives us a way of doing that so that within our social group we can be important and respected. One of the ways you do that in sport is that you lean in and you become a stronger fan and you demonstrate your interest and your fanaticism by going that extra step through social sacrifice and commitment to the team. So what often happens is that some individuals find when they're seeking that sense of meaning, it's easy to lean in and to accumulate that sort of sense of respect through the, the experience of sport. But there's still some uncertainties here as well. I mean, for example, Mike, when we look at the research of individuals who get themselves into trouble at sport, whether it's through hooliganism or just yelling obscenities at officials, you might think that they're bad apples but the reality turns out that they're everyday people who just seem to be finding a cathartic release through sport, sometimes going over the lines. So it's an interesting revelation to discover that all of us can become die hard fans. And maybe you've had that experience where you've, you've gone to two different kinds of sporting events with the same person. Maybe you go to golf or tennis and, and you're both quite restrained. And then you, you go to hockey or you know, a highly intense fan experience and you know, you scream and you yell and you become completely different people depending on the conte.
- [37:07]
Mike Carruthers
But some people don't like sports at all. I mean, they just couldn't care less and, and don't even understand why others do. There's no need for them, for whatever reason, to seek out that tribe.
- [37:20]
Aaron CT Smith
No, there isn't. But what we discover is that all people have this, this need, the same need that's being yielded through sport, it can be through other experiences as well. And it just depends on your sort of cultural exposures as to whether that was important to you. What we do find though is that there's a very strong correlation between early life experiences in sport and ongoing fandom. In other words, if sport was good to you as a young person, then you tend to find that you're good to sport in the way back. So those of us who weren't very good at sporting when we were younger or at school or in early settings don't tend to gravitate towards sport and move towards other ways of meeting those needs.
- [38:11]
Mike Carruthers
There does seem to be a gender difference. I mean, if you look at the stands at a football game or a baseball game, I mean, there are plenty of women there, but the men seem to outnumber the women substantially at most sporting events. And why would that be?
- [38:29]
Aaron CT Smith
The probable reason is that testosterone amplifies a sense of tribal affiliation and aggression. So we, we dig deeper as men because we're driven through our hormonal system to get a stronger impact out of sports sense of tribal belonging. We know, for example, that many experience greater hormonal changes while watching intense matches. Our stress hormones go through the roof when we watch intense matches by up to about 50%. In fact, research shows that cardiac events, that is, you know, heart, heart attacks spike by about a quarter in home fans during defeats. But that doesn't apply to women, so it only applies to men. So sport, in fact can be dangerous for, for men, some situations.
- [39:26]
Mike Carruthers
Well, and the other thing that I find interesting, and it really Obviously relates to the tribal thing that you're talking about is, you know, to watch a game, to watch a baseball game or a football game, you get more information and you understand the game better if you watch it at home. I mean, you get the stats put up and the commentator tells you why and what happened and. But people like to go to the game because that's a whole different experience. It's not the best way to see the game, but it's the best way to maybe experience the, whatever that is the phenomenon of the game.
- [40:03]
Aaron CT Smith
In a strange way, you know, we're addicted to sport and that crowd environment because it gives us this incredible sense of belonging and connection to the people around us. We also get this outcome in terms of bonding and trust and affection, direction through sport. It connects us to the team in a way where we can no longer differentiate in an unconscious sense, us and the team, we are part of this collective sense of identity. And meanwhile our brains are in on the action. You know, all of that euphoria, the neurochemicals, the dopamine creates this credible concentration that's even in some of the research suggests that those crowd like situations can create a kind of brainwave synchrony where our brain waves come into a kind of flow state that lead to a greater memory imprinting. Neuroscientists call this a hippocampal imprinting, which means that all those euphoric experiences get then linked to meaning over time. And this of course is exactly the way we work. You know, we talk about this, you know, those great sport experiences that we had.
- [41:23]
Mike Carruthers
My perception is that most big sports fans have like a favorite, like they're a baseball fan mostly and they like the Dodgers, but they also follow the Lakers and maybe you know, another team, but there's one dominant sport for them. Is my perception true or is that just my perception?
- [41:48]
Aaron CT Smith
No, your perception is exactly right. That's borne out in research. We tend to have one particular favorite club or team or association or sometimes athlete. It depends on the sport a little bit. You know, for example, NFL fans are very much connected to a, a particular, to the team itself and, and that sense of identity. NFL fans have the highest level of loyalty in terms of never missing a game, whereas NBA, NBA fans are more connected to the athletes and players themselves. So it's possible, Mike, that what you can have is, you know, one preferred club or team, but at the same time have a couple of players that you follow as well.
- [42:33]
Mike Carruthers
In cases where the sport itself is not about a team, but it's about individuals, golf, tennis, those kind of things. So when a Tiger woods comes along, it seems like there are more people into golf because of him. And then when he fades away, what happens to those people? Do they latch onto another golfer? Or was their connection to golf so Tiger Woodsy that when he's gone, I'm gone?
- [43:05]
Aaron CT Smith
That's a brilliant question. It appears that for most of those individuals, there's something about the particular player themselves that forges a sense of resonance or, you know, narrative. There's just something, some angle, some connection. And that is what connects the fan to the sport is via the player. And so when that player perhaps concludes their winning run or retires or, or even in some instances leaves the sport altogether, there tends to be a significant drop off to that sport. So it's connected through the individual themselves.
- [43:51]
Mike Carruthers
Has this whole thing of fandom and everything you've been talking about, does it go back real far? Is this a relatively recent thing that maybe life in earlier times on earth was so perilous that we didn't have time for being a sports fan or not?
- [44:12]
Aaron CT Smith
That's an interesting question. We have evidence going right back to, well, 776 BC with the first Olympics that there were fans of athletes in those times. And we've seen, we've got historical examples of clay becoming sport like, you know, throughout history I mentioned earlier, and it wasn't entirely tongue in cheek to say that across human history and civilization, sports been inevitable. Notable sport has proven to be a cultural universal in every historical civilization across the the globe. For as long as we've got recorded history, there's evidence that sport and organized play has been present and that in order to, for that play to propagate, there's been fans. And so it's, it's become codified in a way where there are rules. And you know, as you know now, our rulemaking is quite extraordinary, our ability to create all of these codification and rules.
- [45:17]
Mike Carruthers
So I've noticed over the past several years that not only do people like sports, but there are so many shows on TV that talk about sports that you could watch on various streaming services and on regular television that it's not just the sport anymore, it's the talking about the sport has become its own sport. And analyzing it and talking about statistics and comparing players is, is it's whole, it's a whole other thing.
- [45:48]
Aaron CT Smith
Yes, well, it's, I mean, fandom is, is part of an entire social ecosystem, of course, and that same sense of identity fusion that produces our interest in sport can also then become part of our co creation of meaning, the way in which we experience life and, and receive interest and satisfaction from it. And because we, we become so knowledgeable about sport, we, we need to consume and, and that's also connected to our sense of that neural reward system, that addiction we have from sport, the, this, the dopamine connection. So just being that constant exposure to sport gives us a, a content that allows us to continually feel good. So it's, it's also part of the anticipation that comes with sport. So it's not just about the consumption, it's about anticipating that consumption, which is incredibly powerful in terms of the way that we feel about ourselves and the way we regulate our emotional patterns. And of course, the great thing about sport, of course, is that there's always next season, so there's always the next game. There's always the next thing that we can think about and hope for the best. There's always hope.
- [47:10]
Mike Carruthers
Yeah, that's the great thing about sports. Well, tomorrow's another day. There's another game. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think clearly sports fans themselves are interested in the world of fandom and how it all works. But maybe even more importantly are people who aren't sports fans who are baffled and fascinated by the whole thing. I've been talking with Aaron CT Smith, who is a professor of management at Newcastle Business School at the University of Newcastle, and he's author of the book the Psychology of Sports Fans. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Aaron, thank you. Thanks for explaining all this.
- [47:48]
Aaron CT Smith
Thank you so much for having me on the show, Mark. I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [47:54]
Mike Carruthers
Who would you say wakes up grumpier, men or women? Well, it turns out it's women. Women are grumpier in the morning than men are. That's because sleep, or lack of sleep has a much bigger impact on women than men, both mentally and physically. The study from Duke University woke up both men and women and determined that women experienced more anger, depression and anxiety in the morning if they didn't get enough sleep. Sleep experts say that women need about 20 more minutes of sleep than men do. The primary function of sleep is to give the brain some downtime. And because women tend to multitask more than men, they'll need some more shut eye to recover. And that is something you should know. You know, the podcasting world is pretty competitive. There are lots of podcasts to listen to, which is why we always appreciate your help in spreading the word about this podcast and telling people about it and asking them to give it a listen. It's easy to share it. Just use the share function on the player you're listening on right now. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. No hablas espanol spries du droidsch.
- [49:06]
Aaron CT Smith
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- [49:09]
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- [49:34]
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