1) If Zug wins, they'll be a stronger threat to you than Urk. Hunter-gatherer tribes have a carefully maintained balance of power - chieftains are mostly an invention of agriculture.
2) "When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget." -- Sen. Everett Dirksen
The central part of Eliezer's comment, in my reading, is that for the vast majority of the time humans evolved they were in a hunter-gatherer tribe format, where the group size was low (other research discussed here indicate an upper-bound of around 50).
In such groups it seems plausible that status “victories” are not absolute, and the power difference between the large and little side is rarely huge. Also, the links between members of two factions are very tight—they all know each other, they're closely related biologically, and they depend on each other tightly for survival.
Some examples: It's unlikely that in a 30/20, or even 40/10 split, the loosing side is massacred: it's still a large fraction of the group, and loosing it completely would reduce the group's survivability. Also, its members are probably children or siblings of members of the winning side, so even if Grog supports Zug because he seems like a better hunter, Grog'll be upset if Zug kills his son Trok, who sided with Urk because he's younger.
The balance of power can slide easily, for instance if Zug gets older, or if he's injured in a hunt. (Actually, it seems common enough that in all status-organized “societies...
It occurs to me that there may be a critical difference between voicing sympathy for a weak faction, vs. actually joining it and sharing its misfortunes.
That is to say, a near-optimal strategy in Zug vs. Urk, assuming one is currently unaffiliated and not required to join either side, is to do as much as possible to support Urk without angering Zug and incurring penalties. As a latecomer you'd get little benefit from joining Zug anyways, but in the chance of a surprise upset, when Urk comes to power you will be more likely to benefit than uninvolved parties or active Zug supporters.
My friend Cheryl suggests a non ev-psych response. Each of us is, in many senses, an underdog. We are out of the ancestral environment, and are part of societies that are too darn large. We feel like underdogs, and so when we see another, we perceive a similarity of circumstance which enhances our feelings of sympathy.
When you see two enemies fighting, you want them both to use up as many resources as possible. That way, the winner will be easy pickings for you. You accomplish this by supporting whoever is weaker. This is the sort of strategy that pops up in many multiplayer board games.
At the Go club, some-one asked about using red, green, and blue stones instead of using black and white. The chap who is doing a PhD in game theory said: the two weakest players will gang up on the strongest player, *just like any truel".
I was surprised by the way he spoke immediately without being distracted from his own game. Study long enough and hard enough and it becomes automatic: gang up on the stronger.
Now humans have an intuitive grasp of social games, which raises the question: what would that algorithm feel like from the inside? Perhaps it gets expressed as sympathy for the underdog?
It might be possible to test this hypothesis. A truel is a three player game that turns into a duel after one player has been eliminated. That is why you side with the weaker of your two opponents. The experimental psychologist setting up his experiment can manipulate the framing. It the game theory idea is correct, sympathy for the underdog should be stronger when the framing primes the idea of a follow on duel.
For example if you frame America versus bin Laden as the battle of two totalising ideologies, will the world be dog-eat-dog Capitalist or beard-and-burka Islamic, that should boo...
The following argument comes from an intro sociology text:
If there are three people competing, all of different strengths, it is worthwhile for the two weakest people to ban together to defeat the strongest person. This takes out the largest threat. (Specific game-theoretic assumptions were not stated.)
Doesn't this basically explain the phenomenon? If Zug kills Urk, I might be next! So I should ban together with Urk to defeat Zug. Even if Urk doesn't reward me at all for the help, my chances against Urk are better than my chances against Zug. (Under certain assumptions.)
It's totally your second explanation. The stronger faction doesn't need you - value of you joining them is really tiny. The weaker faction needs you a lot - if you joining significantly alters the balance of power, they will reward you significantly.
Because of this mechanics of power, both coalitions are close to 50:50, and it's almost always in your best interest to join the slightly smaller one. For empirical evidence look for any modern democracy, with either coalitions of parties (most of continental Europe), or of interest groups (USA). Coalitions tend to have no sense whatsoever - blacks and gays and labour and lawyers vs born-again Christians and rich people and rural poor and racists? Does it make any sense? Not at all, but the 50:50 balance is very close.
I believe without that much evidence (I've seen some mentioned in context of game theory, so I guess someone has it) that this kind of almost 50:50 coalition making is very common in tribal societies, so it might very well be very common in our ancestral environment. In which case sympathy for the underdog makes sense.
Also notice that this is just one of many forces, it will be decisive only in cases where the coalitions are almost even otherwise, just as predicted. If one coalition is far bigger than the other, or you're more aligned with one that the other, sympathy for the underdog won't be strong enough to overcome those.
I'm not sure the evidence of the proposed bias supports the type of ev-psych responses being offered.
The only cases I'm aware of underdog bias actually mattering are of the Israel-Palestine type, not the Zug-Urk type. I-P poses no significant costs or benefit to the individual. Z-U poses tremendous costs or benefits to the individual. I don't imagine I-P type support decisions meaningfully affect reproductive success. Unless there's evidence that people still side with the underdog when it really costs them something, these ev-psych explanations seem to be...
Here's another explanation (a bit like taw's). I don't find it terribly convincing either, but I don't see an outright refutation.
Suppose you have kin, or others whose welfare (in the relevant senses) is correlated with yours. Obviously you'll tend to help them. How much, and how urgently? Much more when they're in worse trouble. (As taw says, when they're in a strong position they don't need your help, so most likely your own more direct interests matter more to you.) So there's value in having a mechanism that makes you care more about people you'd have ...
It's worth bearing in mind how people actually behave: if Zug is so powerful and vengeful that opposing him would be flat-out suicide, people don't. They may quietly nurse grudges and wait for misfortune to befall him, but they don't take overt action. Siding with Urk is a lot more understandable once we note that people only actually do it when it is reasonably safe to do so.
Partly our empathy circuits. Humans like to help - and like to be seen to be helping. The underdog is the party that most obviously needs assistance.
Might I add Dunbar's number to this? Large powerful groups have a tendency to split (especially hunter-gatherer ones). And once they split, they often become each other's enemies. Oftentimes, it's better for the individual to be the underdog when the underdog is a group that is less likely to split.
Alternatively, let's ponder this situation: you're part of a group, a single one of many possible groups. Your group has interests in supporting the weaker groups if your group wishes to survive (of course you may be okay with having your group absorbed into ano...
How about Terror Management Theory? By supporting a cause that is probably going to win anyway, we gain little. But by supporting an unlikely cause such as Leonidas at Thermopylae, there is an increased possibility that if we succeed our accomplishments will live on past us, because it is so incredible. In this way, we would become immortal. One prediction from this explanation is that the greater the disparity between the underdog and the overdog the larger the preference towards the underdog will be, which seems to be backed up empirically (see the increased preference for Slovenia vs. Sweden in the referenced study).
My first thought was to assume it was part of the whole alpha-male dominance thing. Any male that wants to achieve the status of alpha-male starts out in a position of being an underdog and facing an entrenched opposition with all of the advantages of resources.
But, of course, alpha-males outperform when it comes to breeding success and so most genes are descended from males that have confronted this situation, strove against "impossible" odds, and ultimately won.
Of course, if this is the explanation, then one would expect there to be a strong difference in how males and females react to the appearance of an underdog.
The proffered explanations seem plausible. What about with ideas though? I think it's social signaling: 'Look how clever and independent and different I am, that I can adopt this minority viewpoint and justify it.'
(Kind of like Zahavi's handicap principle.)
EDIT: It appears I largely stole this variant on signaling strategy from http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/showoff-bias.html . Oh well.
Your mention of signaling gives me an idea.
What if the mechanism isn't designed to actually support the underdog, but to signal a tendency to support the underdog?
In a world where everyone supports the likely winner, Zug doesn't need to promise anyone anything to keep them on his side. But if one person suddenly develops a tendency to support the underdog, then Zug has to keep him loyal by promising him extra rewards.
The best possible case is one where you end up on Zug's side, but only after vacillating for so long that Zug is terrified you're going to side with Urk and promises everything in his power to win you over. And the only way to terrify Zug that way is to actually side with Urk sometimes.
It seems that supporting an underdog is a more impressive act - it suggests more confidence in your own abilities, and your ability to withstand retribution from the overdog. I'm not sure we do actually support the underdog more when a costly act is required, but we probably try to pretend to support the underdog when doing so is cheap, so we can look more impressive.
There are a log of good thoughts in these comments, but they are scattered. I can see value in someone collecting them into an organized summary of the plausible arguments on this topic.
I don't think it is necessarily true that merely by joining the faction most likely to win you will share in the spoils of victory. Leaders distribute rewards based on seniority more than support. In a close contest, you would likely be courted heavily by both sides, providing a temporary boost in status, but that would disappear once the conflict is over. You will have not earned the trust of the winner since your allegiance was in doubt. I don't think there is much to gain by joining the larger side late; you'll be on the bottom of society once the d...
In a confrontation between two parties, it's more likely that the stronger one will pose the greater threat to you. By supporting the underdog and hoping for a fluke victory, you're increasing your own survival odds. It seems we're probably evolved to seek parity -- where we then have the best chance of dominating -- instead of seeking dominant leaders and siding with them, which is a far more complex and less certain process.
Am I missing something? Also, it would be interesting to see whether females and males have the same reactions toward the overdog.
This problem seems even to afflict Mencius Moldbug. His ideology of formalism seems to be based on ensuring absolute unquestionable authority in order to avoid any violence (whether used to overthrow an authority or cement the hold of an existing one). At the same time he tries to base the appeal of his reactionary narrative by pointing highlighting how reactionaries are "those who lost" (in the terms of William Appleman Williams, whom Mencius would rather not mention) and the strong horse is universalism/antinomianism.
Depending on the group size, the underdog might not be the underdog anymore with your support.
If it's a small group thing (or you have significant power) it is likely that you can determine which side wins.
The underdogs may have more at stake than the winners, and would be willing to give more in return for help. If Bob steals half of Fred's bananas every day, Bob gets to be a little better fed, and Fred dies.
If you help Fred out, he owes you his life, but Bob doesn't care nearly as much if it just means he has to go back to eating only his own bananas (that or you kill him).
If you choose to help Bob, your help isn't worth anything since he had it under control anyway.
Theory: supporting the underdog is a relatively costless longshot bet. Prediction: it will primarily occur in situations when opposing the overdog (verbally) can be done with impunity or secretly.
Overdog wins: no real consequences.
Underdog wins: "I supported you from the beginning! Can I be your trusted lieutenant?"
No one supports the underdog if they're a member, or a fan, of the overdog – only the unaffiliated are free to root for the underdog.
"By comparison, my informal experiments trying to teach people relevant facts about the region's history changed opinion approximately zero percent."
ROFL... Maybe you're trying with people who are either too emotionally involved or not clever enough?
Maybe we just don't like overdogs, bullies in the schoolyard. They are randomly dangerous.
One of the strangest human biases is the almost universal tendency to support the underdog.
I say "human" because even though Americans like to identify themselves as particular friends of the underdog, you can find a little of it everywhere. Anyone who's watched anime knows the Japanese have it. Anyone who's read the Bible knows the Israelites had it (no one was rooting for Goliath!) From mythology to literature to politics to sports, it keeps coming up.
I say "universal" because it doesn't just affect silly things like sports teams. Some psychologists did a study where they showed participants two maps of Israel: one showing it as a large country surrounding the small Palestinian enclaves, and the other showing it as a tiny island in the middle of the hostile Arab world. In the "Palestinians as underdogs" condition, 55% said they supported Palestine. In the "Israelis as underdogs" condition, 75% said they supported Israel. Yes, you can change opinion thirty points by altering perceived underdog status. By comparison, my informal experiments trying to teach people relevant facts about the region's history changed opinion approximately zero percent.
(Oh, and the Israelis and Palestinians know this. That's why the propaganda handbooks they give to their respective supporters - of course they give their supporters propaganda handbooks! - specifically suggest the supporters portray their chosen cause as an underdog. It's also why every time BBC or someone shows a clip about the region, they get complaints from people who thought it didn't make their chosen side seem weak enough!)
And there aren't many mitigating factors. Even when the underdog is obviously completely doomed, we still identify with them: witness Leonidas at Thermopylae. Even when the underdog is evil and the powerful faction is good, we can still feel a little sympathy for them; I remember some of my friends and I talking about bin Laden, and admitting that although he was clearly an evil terrorist scumbag, there was still something sort of awesome about a guy who could take on the entire western world from a cave somewhere.
I say "strangest" because I can't make heads or tails of why evolutionary psychology would allow it. Let's say Zug and Urk are battling it out for supremacy of your hunter-gatherer tribe. Urk comes to you and says "Hey, my faction is really weak. We don't have a chance against Zug, who is much stronger than us. I think we will probably be defeated and humiliated, and our property divided up among Zug's supporters."
The purely rational response seems to be "Wow, thanks for warning me, I'll go join Zug's side right now. Riches and high status as part of the winning faction, here I come!"
Now, many of us probably would join Zug's side. But introspection would tell us we were opposing rational calculation on Zug's side to a native, preconscious support for Urk. Why? The native preconscious part of our brain is usually the one that's really good at ending up on top in tribal power struggles. This sort of thing goes against everything it usually stands for.
I can think of a few explanations, none of them satisfying. First, it could be a mechanism to prevent any one person from getting too powerful. Problem is, this sounds kind of like group selection. Maybe the group does best if there's no one dictator, but from an individual point of view, the best thing to do in a group with a powerful dictator is get on that dictator's good side. Any single individual who initiates the strategy of supporting the underdog gets crushed by all the other people who are still on the dictator's team.
Second, it could be a mechanism to go where the rewards are highest. If a hundred people support Zug, and only ten people support Urk, then you have a chance to become one of Urk's top lieutenants, with all the high status and reproductive opportunities that implies if Urk wins. But I don't like this explanation either. When there's a big disparity in faction sizes, you have no chance of winning, and when there's a small disparity in faction sizes, you don't gain much by siding with the smaller faction. And as size differential between groups increases, the smaller faction's chance of success should drop much more quickly than the opportunities for status with the smaller faction should rise.
So I admit it. I'm stumped. What does Less Wrong think?