The science behind why fans chant at matches



♪His name is Rio and he watches from the stands♪ was how football fans greeted Rio Ferdinand when he was banned for missing a drugs test. Some football chants are made up on the spot, some have echoed around the same grounds for generations.



But scientists think they are a practice that has deep roots in human culture. Every social group ever studied, from the Maori Haka to the Sufi Whirling Dervishes to awkward British people at a wedding, engages in some form of group singing, dancing, and chanting. Why is this?



Psychologists have found that when a group of people engage in collective behaviour - like chanting - it has a profound effect on how they think and feel. Group singing's been shown to have a powerful effect on the mood of depressed people. As well as the uplifting music, it seems that synchronising your breathing, heart rate and voice with other people has the remarkable effect of making us feel connected to one another.



But of course football fans don't usually feel connected to everyone in the stadium. There are plenty of examples of football chants that are rude, offensive, even racist or homophobic. Though they've historically been a means to abuse players and referees, they can also endorse more positive values like celebrating striker Mo Salah's goals with, ♪If he scores another few then I'll be Muslim, too.♪



Collective behaviour like chanting is, more than anything, a way to express social identity and the values of that group. Like the Liverpool fans chanting, "Justice for the 96" in support of the Hillsborough disaster victims.



Chanting at a football match doesn't just bond a group together in love and harmony, there is a dark side to coordinated behaviour. Most armies around the world march up and down in parades. For the past 100 years, at least since the invention of the machine gun, it's been a bad idea to walk slowly towards the enemy in a straight line. So why do soldiers march and chant together?



In one experiment, people were asked to put a jar of live woodlice into a grinder. The people who had marched in unison around the car park beforehand threw about 50% more of the bugs into the grinder than those who had walked the same distance but not in a coordinated march. Please note there was actually an escape chute in the grinder and every bug escaped unharmed. This suggests coordinated behaviours can lower people's sense of personal autonomy, and make them more likely to be obedient to aggressive action.



And there is a final reason that people might chant at a football match. Writing has only been around for a few thousand years, but we find chants and songs in every pre-literate culture. Even today in India, it's the chanted version of Vedic texts that's seen as the definitive version, not the written form. Perhaps chanting is a call back to those older practises of encoding and sharing cultural knowledge.



So next time you hear a thousand people yelling "you don't know what you're doing" to the referee, remember that it's because they're bonding with each other, affirming their social identity and using an ancient technology to record knowledge. And, perhaps, because the referee doesn't know what he's doing.



词汇表

stand [stænd] （运动场的）看台，观众席

drugs test [drʌɡz] 药检，兴奋剂检测

chant [tʃɑːnt] 反复呼喊，吟唱；助威口号

on the spot 当场，立即，在现场

echo around [ˈekəʊ] 流传，传播；回荡，回响

Maori Haka [ˈmaʊri ˈhækə] 毛利战舞（新西兰毛利人的传统战争舞蹈）

Sufi Whirling Dervish [ˈsuːfi ˈwɜːlɪŋ ˈdɜːvɪʃ] 苏菲派旋转舞者（苏菲派穆斯林的一种宗教仪式舞蹈表演者）

uplifting [ˌʌpˈlɪftɪŋ] 令人振奋的，鼓舞人心的

synchronise [ˈsɪŋkrənaɪz] （使）同步，（使）一致

racist [ˈreɪsɪst] 种族主义的；种族主义者

homophobic [ˌhəʊməˈfəʊbɪk] 恐同的，憎恶同性恋的

referee [ˌrefəˈriː] 裁判，裁判员

endorse [ɪnˈdɔːs] 赞同，支持，认可；宣传，吹捧

striker [ˈstraɪkə(r)] （足球等的）前锋

Muslim [ˈmʊzlɪm] 穆斯林，伊斯兰教徒

Hillsborough disaster [ˈhɪlzbrə] 希尔斯堡惨案（1989年英国足球体育场惨案，96名球迷因踩踏事故丧生）

coordinated [kəʊˈɔːdɪneɪtɪd] 协调的，协同

machine gun 机枪，机关枪

a jar of [dʒɑː(r)] 一罐，一瓶

woodlice [ˈwʊdlaɪs] 潮虫，鼠妇，土鳖虫（woodlouse ['wʊdlaʊs]的复数）

grinder [ˈɡraɪndə(r)] 研磨机，磨床

in unison [ˈjuːnɪsən] 齐步，一致，共同

beforehand [bɪˈfɔːhænd] 事先，预先

escape chute [ɪˈskeɪp ʃuːt] 逃生滑道；应急伞

autonomy [ɔːˈtɒnəmi] 自主性，自主权

be obedient to [əˈbiːdiənt] 服从，顺从

pre-literate [priː ˈlɪtərət] 无文字的，文字出现前的

Vedic texts [ˈveɪdɪk teksts] 吠陀经文（古印度宗教文献）

definitive version [dɪˈfɪnətɪv ˈvɜːʃn] 权威版本；最终版本

encode [ɪnˈkəʊd] 编码，译成密码

bond with [bɒnd] 与…建立联系，与…增进感情

affirm [əˈfɜːm] 确认，证实，肯定



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