Deservingness Bias in Sports

People evolved to respond to concrete group conflicts over territory and resources; modern sports mimic those rituals but operate on abstract scores and chance. That ecological mismatch generates a persistent moral intuition that a ‘better’ team ought to win, producing anger or surprise when superior play fails to produce victory. — Recognizing this bias explains common fairness narratives around contests and shows how sports can warp moral judgments and collective storytelling in politics, media, and civic life.