The Underdog

Over at Slate, Daniel Engber has a fascinating (and thorough) investigation of why we root for the underdog. There are numerous factors at work, from the availability heuristic to our deep desire for equality. But I was most intrigued by this research, which tries to explain why we associate underdogs with virtuous characteristics, like effort and teamwork:

In one study, they [Nadav Goldschmied and Joseph Vandello:] found that two-thirds of all voters in the 2004 presidential election...