To me, it is pretty dangerous (and really kind of narcissistic) to infer someone's character by posts on a pro football message board. In your post, "Character" is a driving force for expectations. If person A's expectations on a passive activity which he/she has no bearing to the outcome is to generally "hope for the best" where person B see's the same thing and expects the worse, that has nothing to do with character but with processing information - which some is learned by experience, observation, etc nd drawing a conclusion - its formulation of judgement. Watching something passively from afar and blindly "expecting the best outcome" can also be detrimental and show arguably poor "character." I probably cant get into this deep, but this was/is a main tenant of religion where total acceptance is required. Arguably, this is great for people when the leader is sound of character, but when you get a Jim Jones, putting blind faith in something wasnt very beneficial or noble. This cant be swept away as "only those with bad character" would follow him. Another example is responding to a person with a drug addiction. Some pray and hope others practice tough love and cut off. Both of those can be reasoned responses and dont necessarily demonstrate better/worse character
For fan "typology," to me, you have to start with the simple premise that the entire modus is irrational. Sport teams are usually set in childhood and rarely change. It is more rational to follow a player as a person with a connection or to seek out being entertained by the best product. This rarely happens. But I digress, if fandom is based in some a degree of irrationality, trying to determine someone's behavior/response to that stimuli is an exercise in futility.
As I stated before, "this" (fandom collectively cheering, complaining, posting) is about entertainment and nostalgia on an irrational base. Fandom and now message boards satisfies and a basic human need for belonging (group of fans of same team, group of people with religion, group of people). When people get together, smaller factions form with similar beliefs. What you hope to get is rational dialogue to a fundamental irrational subject (all 22 review, statistical corroboration, etc, etc,), but this need to continually assign labels and extrapolate character and humanity is an effort in futility.
I have seen roughly the following 2 statements here:
- I never expect/pick the Cowboys to lose, its not in my nature to be negative
- The Cowboys will never win because Jerry/Jason/culture is fundamentally flawed
While both of these are extreme and absolute statements, the first is almost solipsistic as the persons own thoughts are the only truth. It is almost as good as "They always win because I think they should." The second, while polar and likely as wrong, at least attribute the view to a reason. I have never seen anyone say I always pick dallas to lose because they should. teh vast majority of people will lie in the middle and be malleable to degrees (in my view high correlation with more rational employed)
All this label is also likely to meet a need to for an individual to explain why their view is right and everyone else isnt smart enough to see it. Ego plays a big part here and you can tell who has the biggest ego by those who cant take an opposing view or handle being called on an incorrect view.
Maybe that ironically circles back to character, but you will rarely/never get one group to acquiesce they are just as guilty as another
First i want to clarify some things you seem to have missinterpreted:
My post was not so much about fandom in general or the fans here on this board. Fandom was just the hook in the initial post for - to me - a much more fascinating topic.
Also i do think you missunderstood my use of the word character. And its a bit bothering that your whole answer is build upon a grading into "good" and "bad". That is not what my intention was in my post. I did not grade.
When i use the word character i mean the fundament that makes you the person you are. This is your genes and your epigenetics (Thats the common agreement of todays science of what shapes your character). But this alone is not enough to describe why you are the person you are. There are also external influences which - over a lifespan - let you be the person you are. In short: character and upbringing are the fundaments of you as a human. That again is not my thesis but the status of knowledge of human science today.
I never said that I or anybody can (fully) infer the character of people. That was not my intention either. But thats your interpretation of my post - which could be also seen as narcissistic in some kind of way. ;-)
After i have clarified that let me give you some answers to your thoughts:
If person A's expectations on a passive activity which he/she has no bearing to the outcome is to generally "hope for the best" where person B see's the same thing and expects the worse, that has nothing to do with character but with processing information - which some is learned by experience, observation, etc nd drawing a conclusion - its formulation of judgement.
What you wrote is not a priori wrong. But to me its not thought thru to the end. Let me explain:
Of course the way you stated it is (one possible) way humans come to conclusions. But the important thing you left out is "interpretation": All those things that happen to you, those experiences you make, the observations - all those stimulations of your sensors - are interpreted by you. And the interpretation of "things" is based on your character: Your epigenetic decides which genes are going to be activated when you experience certain stimulations. This process is what i call interpretation. Because your genes and epigenetic are/is unique the interpretation and therfore the kind of human you are and will be in the future is unique.
Consequently those "judgements" (like you call it) or the conclusions (i find the word more fitting) you make as a human when you (rationaly) process information
are influenced by your character (= genes/epigenetic).
Further more the interpretation lets your brain build its synapses. That means that the way you think in the future about the things that happend to you in the past is based on your interpretation-process hence your character hence your genetics.
Very simplistic spoken (please dont take that as an argument against me): Thats the reason why humans with exactly the same experience come to different conclusions. The reason is NOT because what happend was different. And with comming to a conclusion i dont necessarily mean that this is a conscious process. This is rather something unconscious but it shapes your behaviour, your feelings etc... - all those things you are not concious of - and therefore all the (unconscious) decissions you will make in the future.
A small example: Lets take for instance a small child which parents will get divorced. One child may suffer maybe will - in his later life - have addiction issues (alcohol, drugs, games etc ...). Another child may suffer also but has somehow the "ability" to handle the "problem" and may even get out of it as a stronger person. The first child may need help from the outside (positive influences) like a good teacher, good friends, a good surrounding. The other may not need those things and still get thru this phase of his life. The way those two childs develop is based on their character and how they interprete the things that "threaten" their autonomy - or else - their own ability to survive. That "ability" to "survive bad circumstances" is your character its your epigentic and genes. And this has nothing to do with grading something.
The character defines such fundamental things as desideratum. Which is trivial because your fundamental needs are there to show you what you need to survive. And what you need to survive (food, sleep, motion etc ...) is based on your individual (physical) needs - and thats based on your genes hence your character.
Everything we experience in life and we take as facts is always only our interpretation of what happend, of what we experienced - its
entirely subjectiv. Thats also the reason why there is no so called "absolut knowledge". No serious natural scientist will ever tell you that we will ever know how the world works. Its always an incrementalism to the truth but we will never know the "real" truth.
That said: The processing of information OF COURSE has
everything to do with your character. The interpretation of those informations
is based on your character (and of course your upbringing, which means the experience you already made has also influence how you interpret new experiences. but the latter was and should be out of question here.).
For fan "typology," to me, you have to start with the simple premise that the entire modus is irrational. Sport teams are usually set in childhood and rarely change. It is more rational to follow a player as a person with a connection or to seek out being entertained by the best product. This rarely happens. But I digress, if fandom is based in some a degree of irrationality, trying to determine someone's behavior/response to that stimuli is an exercise in futility.
As I stated before, "this" (fandom collectively cheering, complaining, posting) is about entertainment and nostalgia on an irrational base. Fandom and now message boards satisfies and a basic human need for belonging (group of fans of same team, group of people with religion, group of people). When people get together, smaller factions form with similar beliefs. What you hope to get is rational dialogue to a fundamental irrational subject (all 22 review, statistical corroboration, etc, etc,), but this need to continually assign labels and extrapolate character and humanity is an effort in futility.
Maybe i missunderstand you but i do think you contradict yourself. You start with the assumption that the entire "modus" is irrational. But in your next sentence you write that people make decission based on rational behaviour ?!
Anyways ... As i said my post was not about fandom. And it wasnt about how in detail people act the way they act. but of course humans are social beings. They need others around them, they need to be integrated in groups, they need the exchange with others. All that is needed to survive. But again i did not assign labels or extrapolated anything. In fact i wrote exactly the oposite: "Statistic is the death of the individual." - Thats what i wrote. Which in fact supports your opinion.
When it comes to the process of rational or irrational decision-making i am a bit torn (means i dont know ;-).
First: science says that all of our decissions are irrational. Even if you think about something rationaly the decision you make is mainly based on irrational reasons. I for myself have problems with those two words. What i like more is to call it a process of conscious and unconscious decision-making. Now you could define that rational decisions are those who are made in a logical means conscious way and irrational decisions as unconscious ones. But from what i have read in scientic papers unconscious decisions are still rational ones. its just that the process is not conscious to the human. But it is made in the same way the conscious is made: Your brain processes alot of parameters and comes to a clonclusion. Whats mor interessting is that the unconscious part has WAY more parameters then the conscious one. It means that unconscious experiences have much more weight in our decision finding process .The parameters also differ alot. The unconscious part processes old feelings, exeriences etc where the conscious part is logical and more based on todays needs. Thats one reason why i use "conscious = logical = rational" and "unconscious = irrational". But that may be to easy and wrong. I guess there are too important differences between those terms in this context.
I probably cant get into this deep, but this was/is a main tenant of religion where total acceptance is required. Arguably, this is great for people when the leader is sound of character, but when you get a Jim Jones, putting blind faith in something wasnt very beneficial or noble. This cant be swept away as "only those with bad character" would follow him.
I do differ between "religion" as a conception and the "church" as an organisation (or any other community/group of humans that interpret religion in any kind of way, set rules etc...). I do think religion is a great thing and there is nothing "bad" about it (at least the ones that i know: buddhism, hinduism, christianity, islamism, etc...). I do agree with you that humans not always interpret religion in the best interest of others. I dont want to start a war against the church here but there are enough examples in human history that churches misinterpreted "the words of a transcendental being" consciously so they benefited the most out of it.
WOW. I could even write more. But i am (a bit) tired and too lazy right now.
Anyways thanks for your post!
It's nothing to defend or be ashamed of. 
