The Secret Lives of Sports Fans

the long version

What happens in your brain when you watch sports? Why do so many people return to something that so often leaves them heartbroken, angry, and even violent? The Secret Lives of Sports Fans by Eric Simons, out this month from Overlook, turns to neuroscience, psychology, endocrinology, evolutionary biology -- and one sensitive man in an Oakland Raiders gorilla suit -- in a search for the roots of a universal passion. In The Secret Lives of Sports Fans, journalist Eric Simons poses a very simple question that millions of people have asked themselves at some point in their lives: "Why am I a sports fan, and why do I have this apparently irrational passion for something that the rational part of me says is ridiculous. And why does watching my favorite team make me hyperemotional?" From surging testosterone to firing neurons, the science suggests that sports fans cede emotional control to our reflexes. And yet, critically, we retain a remarkable ability to influence and even control, the way those reflexes work. To explain that strange dance in the brain, Simons explores research on relationships, love, addiction and groups, concluding with a close look at what evolutionary theories can teach us about how and why people act tribally, and why culture matters. - Publisher.