The Remaining, Unconvinced Few: Using Twitter to Examine Non-CORFing Behaviors Following a Political Defeat

Abstract

Twitter and other social media technologies offer social scientists new and innovative ways of investigating individual-level processes on a mass scale. The current study examined communicative behaviors associated with Cutting off Reflected Failure (CORF) in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. The results support past research suggesting that following defeat, small numbers of highly involved individuals may not experience CORF but may instead turn to other rationalizations to make sense of the event in question. Findings are discussed in terms of our understanding of Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRG) and CORF, and in terms of the utility of Twitter in examining similar phenomena in the future.