I offer this little pondering for
your pop-culture tastes. If you have a psychological interest, you might want
to read on as well.
One used to call it name-dropping;
now calls it BIRGing.
You have no doubt heard the
expression “burgeoning success” from time to time. It is rare but it is used.
The Chicago Tribune used the phrase not long ago in a headline about the punk
trio Gossip: “Gossip shouts out its burgeoning success” (April 14, 2007).
Halfway around the world, only a
day earlier, the Noosa News, a small paper published in a coastal shire of
Australia, used the word to describe the success of a local farmer’s market:
“They started off as a small experiment aimed at giving local growers a
platform for their produce. But the Noosa Farmers Markets are now a burgeoning
success, attracting a wide variety of stallholders and customers.”
Burgeoning. Good word. However,
have you heard someone described as a “BIRGing success?” If you have not,
thanks to author Jake Halpern, now you may.
In his book Fame Junkies, Halpern brings the psychological concept of BIRGing
down to the pop-culture level. BIRG is an acronym for “Basking In Reflected
Glory.”
Halpern notes that BIRGing and
other fame junkie behaviors are evidence of American addiction to celebrity
culture. Look at the magazine covers when you are purchasing your groceries —
our nation apparently cares if Britney Spears’ poodle has puppies with Al
Gore’s beagle. Such inanities are more widely noticed in our fame-fascinated
society than famine in Ghana.
However, BIRGing is less about
celebrity fixation and more about self-fixation. Psychologist Robert Cialdini
coined the expression, arguing that BIRGing has its roots in social identity
theory, which states that people will generally act in ways that boost their
self-esteem. Consider these examples that may land a little close to home.
Cialdini studied student patterns
on Mondays following Saturday football games at six universities. After their
teams won, students were more likely to don school accessories — sweatshirts,
T-shirts or hats. We can see the same trend at work by tracking team clothing
sales following a championship win. Super Bowl and World Series winners have
burgeoning crowds of BIRGing admirers.
They are basking in reflected
glory.
We love to share the glory. Nevertheless,
we do not love to share the humiliation of a loss. If something goes wrong, we
immediately distance ourselves from the disaster. The paired opposite to the
BIRG is the CORF — “Cutting Off Responsibility for Failure.” In the same campus
research, Cialdini found that weekend wins resulted in student descriptions of
how “we” played — a BIRG. Diction following team losses was dominated by
descriptions of “their” performance — a CORF.
If there is a success, we love to
be a part of it. We BIRG.
If there is failure, we run like
crazy. We CORF.
CORFers may also cope through
“blasting,” where one’s victorious opponent is ridiculed in a reputation
self-defense mechanism. “The Yankees are a bunch of mercenary thugs worshiped
by fair-weather fans.”
How ironic … a CORFer may blast a
BIRGer.
Other BIRGing research shows that
people will praise celebrities with whom they have some form of personal
connection. Cialdini gave subjects a biography of Grigori Rasputin that cast
the Russian religious misfit in a villainous light. He gave half of the readers
accounts that matched Rasputin’s birthdate with their own, and those who shared
this commonality with the mystic overwhelmingly described him more favorably.
We all BIRG from time to time, but
it goes by a different title: name-dropping. Who has not socially networked by
mentioning their association with someone who has name recognition?
“I went to high school with .…”
“My family traces their ancestry
back to .…”
All of which makes me wonder.
Would those who know me be more
likely to BIRG or to CORF?
