Why do we watch the Olympics?

Almost 20% of Russians are not interested in the Olympic Games, but as soon as the next four-year event approaches, approximately 70% declare their intention to follow current competitions¹. We passionately discuss results in various sports at work and at home, we gather in sports bars in companies to cheer “as it should”, we worry if our team has fewer medals than others. Sometimes even, inspired by what we see, we sign up for sports clubs or take children to sections. Our experts named six reasons for this behavior.

1. Нам не хватает ярких событий.

Everyday life is predictable and clearly planned, and such a powerful ritual as the Olympic Games is expected to be some kind of super-event, and even a planetary one. In addition, the Olympics have been going on for more than two weeks: this is a long holiday, long communication, you can remember about it for a long time. Those who saw the Moscow Olympics-80 will surely agree that this event became a kind of anchor for our memories: we remember the competitions, the poignant closing ceremony, and the special Olympic atmosphere in general – the feeling of belonging to some milestone, being there, where something extraordinary happens. In addition, while the Games are going on, we see something new every day, so daily “emotional jumps”, tension are provided to us.

We lack acute emotions, including, oddly enough, negative ones. But why do they attract us? Like Pushkin in “A Feast in the Time of Plague”: “Everything, everything that threatens death, for the heart of a mortal conceals inexplicable pleasures.” “It is disturbing and at the same time involved in what is happening, first of all, uncertainty,” explains social psychologist Hakob Nazaretyan. – Watching the ski race, figure skating or speed skating competitions, we experience a very thrilling feeling, because we don’t know how the “duel” will end, whether ours (those we support) will win. Involuntarily (albeit for a moment), we ourselves become participants in the competition. “This kind of ownership allows us to experience the achievements of the Olympians as our own,” adds social psychologist Tatyana Stefanenko. “We can say that thanks to the Olympic competitions, our self-esteem increases, we assert ourselves, we begin to treat ourselves better.”

2. We strive to get in touch with our emotions.

When we watch TV, where at that moment the athletes are fighting for a medal, we are watching not so much the game as we are watching ourselves, our emotions. Try three or four months after the end of the Olympic Games to ask active TV fans to talk about them. Not many people will name the time with which the biathletes finished the relay, or the result of the Olympic champion in ski jumping. But everyone will remember their experiences: joy, sympathy, disappointment, anger, pride.

“When many people gather in stadiums or at television screens, there is a mutual emotional contagion, or circular reaction, – explains Hakob Nazaretyan. – Excitation, emotional upsurge, empathy, as well as irritation, rage, are transmitted from one person to another. At such moments, individual differences are erased: our personal experience, individual and role identification, even common sense – we feel and behave “like everyone else.” Such “anonymity” allows, albeit for a short time, to part with the usual image of a respectable politician, high-browed scientist, imperturbable beauty or a tired mother of the family, to feel pleasure, excitement, vitality and, in this sense, to become closer to yourself. We can put ourselves in the place of the winner, and the defeated, and offended by unfair refereeing, experience their emotions. But at the same time, most importantly, a calming distance is maintained: no matter how much we worry, it’s still not us.

3. We need to sublimate aggression.

Sport is one of the best cultural substitutes for aggression. As you know, the Greeks began to organize the Olympic Games to make a break in the endless internecine conflicts: during the competition, all wars were suspended. Participation in competitions is also useful for spectators. Well, it seems, the game, everything is conditional: well, they didn’t score the puck, well, what’s wrong, the game is the same! And we are deeply worried. At such moments, identification with the one who made a mistake, who lost: we unconsciously begin to feel our weakness, our self-esteem falls, we feel helpless, and, of course, we don’t like it. And vice versa, if “ours” win, we identify ourselves with the “aggressor” and feel an upsurge, a surge of strength, we can move mountains. “Helpless, weak, inferior, we first realize ourselves in childhood, and for the first time then many of us have a need to feel like a leader, to become a winner,” says social psychologist Takhir Bazarov. “Olympic TV broadcasts allow us to compensate for this feeling, to feel our strength, our perfection.”

4. We are looking for our own face.

The joy of the inhabitants of those countries whose athletes receive only one medal is sincere and enormous, and the Olympic champion becomes a real national hero. Conversely, when a country’s claims to victory in various sports are high, many of its citizens experience humiliation if there are fewer medals or athletes take fourth, fifth place … “Such strong emotions are associated with a sense of national identity, which, thanks to the Olympics, we experience especially vividly, – explains Tatiana Stefanenko. “But a positive identity is just as important. That is why, when there are no Russian athletes among the clear leaders, we start rooting for the favorite of the competition, and in case of his failure, we choose another. Realizing our belonging to the “best” group (those who rooted for the winner), we ourselves feel better.”

5. We stimulate our own libido.

Нельзя не учитывать и эротический компонент: хорошенькие спортсменки, молодые, активные, агрессивные, успешные, – на них нравится смотреть не только мужчинам, но и женщинам. Каждая может представить себя на их месте – на катке или на пьедестале почета. «Но и спортсмены, эти брутальные мужчины, тоже эротически привлекательны, в том числе для мужчин с долей гомосексуальности, которую они могут и не осознавать, – говорит психоаналитик Марина Арутюнян. – В реальности брутальность может быть опасна, а перед телеэкраном можно фантазировать без последствий».

6. We need the company of other people.

Paradox: we communicate a lot, but the wider the circle of our contacts, the more acutely we feel our loneliness, helplessness, anxiety. But here we are, for example, watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, and other people – in Africa, the Czech Republic, Brazil – they are also watching at the same time as us! “At such moments, a feeling of belonging to the multitude, to all people is born: I unite with all of humanity, and I am no longer alone,” – комментирует Татьяна Стефаненко. Олимпийские игры дают уникальную возможность почувствовать связь с другими людьми, и объединяет нас не общий враг, а игра, радость сопереживания, удовольствие от общения.

¹ According to the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion; http://wciom.ru