Cutting of Reflected Failure (CORF)ing; Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986) is a corollary of BIRGing and consists in hiding a connection between oneself and unsuccessful others. Initially, this phenomenon was explained using Heider’s (1958) balance concept.
Heider claimed that individuals strive for consistency in their perceived social relationships. More specifically, through hiding their association with an unsuccessful individual or group (e.g., sport team), people can prevent a connection between themselves and negatively evaluated others, and thus protect their social image. In this fashion, CORFing can serve a self-protection function. Recent research revealed that the level of group or team identification leads to a broad variety of perceptual (e.g., emphasizing own team players’ heterogeneity), affective (e.g., unpleasant mood), and behavioral responses (e.g., leaving the unsuccessful team) which illustrate this individual mobility strategy.
References
Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations.
New York: Wiley.
Snyder, C. R., Lassegard, M., & Ford, C. E. (1986).
Distancing after group success and failure: Basking in
reflected glory and cutting off reflected failure. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 382 388.
Contributed by Iouri Bernache-Assollant
