University of British Columbia professor Graham Brown once asked pairs of college students to take part in a mock contract negotiation. But he staggered the arrival of the students, taking early-arriving students to an unused office. There, Brown handed the early bird a key to the office, told her she was free to use the computer, even encouraged her to hang up a poster or two as decoration. Then he gave the early bird 20 minutes to get comfortable in the space. Once the other student arrived, they proceeded with the negotiation. It wasn’t even close. The students who made themselves at home in the office got everything they wanted, and more.
Brown concluded that those who are on their home turf receive a huge windfall. Their takeaway may be worth up to 160% more than what the away-team opponents will bring home.
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When two teams at a firm work together on a project, the team hosting the coffee and bagels in their conference room is more likely to take charge of the entire endeavor.
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[T]he home team in a NBA game wins about 63% of the time.
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In studies of collegiate and professional basketball teams, the home teams are led by centers and forwards. The home teams are better at blocks, steals, turnovers, and have more successful field-goal attempts. The away team is led by guards’ defensive tactics: they are better at assists, three-point shots, rebounds, and intentional fouls.
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Statistician Richard Pollard looked at the win-loss records of 37 professional teams that moved to shiny new stadiums across town. You’d think that the new and improved facilities help the teams, but Pollard’s results show that, at least at first, teams are actually less likely to win in the new stadium than they were at the old park.
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A few years ago, violence in the stands of Italian soccer games became so pronounced that some teams chose to play in empty stadiums: not a single fan was allowed in to watch the game. But the home teams still kept winning.
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Given findings such as these, researchers have increasingly come to the conclusion that the home advantage is an evolutionary one, rooted in territorialism — a deeply rooted, innate need to control one’s own space. And once this sense of territorialism is activated, you become more competitive; you’re more willing to challenge potential intruders. You’re more confident, more motivated, and more aggressive when you perceive a potential threat. You have a higher sense of self-efficacy, controlling the environment in a way that best suits your needs.
In video game experiments, if a player arrived at the game’s target destination just ten seconds before his opponent, he was more likely to win the game.
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People accept others’ sense of ownership just as quickly: late arrivals accept that they are the visitors and usually defer to this prior residency. Latecomers are the ones more likely to flee than stand their ground. Territorialism explains why pedestrians naturally say, “Excuse me,” when walking past a perfect stranger. On a subconscious level, it feels as if the other person already “owns” the sidewalk in front of him, and someone needs permission to take the sidewalk away.
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If another car was waiting for the space, people took twice as long to exit.
“Researchers have increasingly come to the conclusion that the home advantage is an evolutionary one, rooted in territorialism — a deeply rooted, innate need to control one’s own space. And once this sense of territorialism is activated, you become more competitive; you’re more willing to challenge potential intruders. You’re more confident, more motivated, and more aggressive when you perceive a potential threat.”
From Michael Anton’s review of Bronze Age Mindset:
“At the upper reaches, among the higher animals (BAP is relentlessly hierarchical), what [life] wants is mastery of ‘owned space.’ ‘Owned space’ is the most important concept introduced in Part One and the key to understanding the rest of the ‘exhortation,’ if not necessarily the rest of the book. BAP argues that life, fundamentally, is a ‘struggle for space.’ All life seeks to develop its powers and master the surrounding matter and space to the maximum extent possible. For the lower species, this simply means mass reproduction and enlarging habitat. For the higher animals, it means controlling terrain, dominating other species, dominating the weaker specimens within your own species, getting first dibs on prey and choice of mates, and so on. BAP sees no fundamental distinction between living in harmony with nature and mastering nature. All animals seek to master their environments to the extent that they can, and the nature of man, or of man at his best—the highest man—is to seek to master nature itself. Not in the Aristotelian sense of understanding the whole, nor in the Baconian sense of ‘the relief of man’s estate’ via technology and plenty; more to assert and exert his own power. Indeed, BAP posits an inner kinship between the genuine scientist and the warrior; he calls the former ‘monsters of will.’”
Or you could not negotiate and claim your opponent’s territory as your own like Genghis Khan. Then the answer would still be the same… because evolution. If evolution is the foundation of your philosophy then evolution is the answer to every puzzle.
BAP > Anton.
BAP-ists are younger than the Anton crowd. BAP in some form is the future, if we have one, and I am older than Anton.
Arriving first works in warfare too.
“Git thar fustest with the mostest.”