Overview Effect

HYPOTHESIS 1: NOT IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

If you ever leave the planet Earth, you’ll probably end up rethinking some of your feelings about other human beings. A team of psychologists has studied the effects of outer space on inner space, assessing the changes in more than a hundred astronauts and cosmonauts through interviews, surveys, and analyses of autobiographies. Upon returning from space, astronauts are less focused on individual achievements and personal happiness, and more concerned about the collective good. “You develop an instant global consciousness . . . an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it,” Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell reflected. “From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a b*tch.’”

This reaction is known as the overview effect. The astronaut who described it most vividly to me is space shuttle commander Jeff Ashby. He recalled that the first time he looked back at the Earth from outer space, it changed him forever:

On Earth, astronauts look to the stars—most of us are star fanatics—but in space, the stars look the same as they do on Earth. What is so different is the planet—the perspective that it gives you. My first glimpse of the Earth from space was about fifteen minutes into my first flight, when I looked up from my checklist and suddenly we were over the lit part of the Earth with our windows facing down. Below me was the continent of Africa, and it was moving by much as a city would move by from an airline seat. Circling the entire planet in ninety minutes, you see that thin blue arc of the atmosphere. Seeing how fragile the little layer is in which all of humankind exists, you can easily from space see the connection between someone on one side of the planet to someone on the other—and there are no borders evident. So it appears as just this one common layer that we all exist in.

When you get to see an overview of the Earth from outer space, you realize you share a common identity with all human beings. I wanted to create a version of the overview effect for baseball fans.

There’s some evidence that common identity can build bridges between rivals. In one experiment, psychologists randomly assigned Manchester United soccer fans a short writing task. They then staged an emergency in which a passing runner slipped and fell, screaming in pain as he held his ankle. He was wearing the T-shirt of their biggest rival, and the question was whether they would stop to help him. If the soccer fans had just written about why they loved their team, only 30 percent helped. If they had written about what they had in common with other soccer fans, 70 percent helped.

When Tim and I tried to get Red Sox and Yankees fans to reflect on their common identity as baseball fans, it didn’t work. They didn’t end up with more positive views of one another or a greater willingness to help one another outside emergency situations. Shared identity doesn’t stick in every circumstance. If a rival fan has just had an accident, thinking about a common identity might motivate us to help. If he’s not in danger or dire need, though, it’s too easy to dismiss him as just another jerk—or not our responsibility. “We both love baseball,” one Red Sox supporter commented. “The Yankees fans just like the wrong team.” Another stated that their shared love of baseball had no effect on his opinions: “The Yankees suck, and their fans are annoying.”