We all want to know a cheerleader.

I think we all know of someone who has accomplished something good in life. Something that everyone looks upon them with envy, but then at the same time wish to get to know them and or become associated with them. This phenomenon actually unfolded before my eyes about 2 years ago. My girlfriend of 3.5 years is best friends with another girl who has always been a very gifted dancer and since she was a little girl had a dream of becoming a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Well, once we graduated from high school, and she did not immediately go into a 4 year college, there was not much stopping her from attempting to reach her dream. Her father basically told her, “Hey, why not?”, so she drove up to Dallas, and after a grueling month of tryouts and boot camps, she was officially dubbed a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Needless to say, this caused her popularity with people from high school to absolutely sky rocket. As soon as it became public that she was going to be a cheerleader, her facebook began to explode with people wanting to start to talk to her, compliment her and even get her phone number and hang out with her. This to me seems like a prime example of Bask In Reflected Glory or BIRGing (Cialdini et. al., 1976). The term is used to describe how people like to increase their self-esteem by associating themselves with others who are well off. Before she was a cheerleader, she was just another girl in high school, but once she joined the team, an outside observer would believe that she was prom queen and the most popular girl in school. My view is compounded even more by how her social status is today. She was a cheerleader for the entirety of this past season, and announced her retirement from the team in order to attend a 4-year college in the hopes of becoming a drill team director. It literally seemed like the instant she announced her retirement, the status likes stopped, the constant texts stopped and the apple lost its shine, even though nothing personality wise changed about her. I can't say that I was completely immune to the draw to attempt to associate myself with her, it was a comfort to think that I was attempting to solve her relationship problems before it was cool. Psychological Hipster.

Cialdini, R.B., Borden, R.J., Thorne, A., Walker, M.R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L.R. (1976). Basking in                                                                                                                                                    reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 366-375



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