You are in front of the screen, your heart racing when the decisive goal arrives. It’s the whole body that reacts, of course, but it’s especially your brain that is the conductor of this roller coaster. A team from the Chilean university Universidad San Sebastián decided to find out more by going to see in more detail what was happening in the heads of football fans using cutting-edge medical imaging.
Published in the journal Radiologytheir results show how the victory or defeat of the favorite team activates very specific circuits in the brain. A discovery which allows us to understand the causes of fanaticism for which the
Football: a good field of study for the neurological deciphering of fanaticism?
Rivalries are an integral part of sports history, and fans can be extremely loyal to their favorite team and players. These fans go through a range of emotions as they witness their team’s victories or defeats, jubilant over a goal or protesting an unfavorable refereeing decision. Football fans are particularly known for their attachment to a club and their passion, especially in Europe and South America.
The researchers first set the scene: “Soccer is a global phenomenon, and its followers display a wide range of behaviors, from mere spectatorship to intense emotional engagement, making it a useful model for examining social identity and emotional processing in competitive contexts. Although social affiliation has been widely studied, the neurobiological mechanisms of social identity in competitive contexts remain unclear“.
For Francisco Zamorano, biologist, doctor of medical sciences at the Clínica Alemana de Santiago, the phenomenon of football fans offers in this respect a “model of fanaticism, with quantifiable consequences on health and collective behavior“.
Deciphering the brains of 60 supporters
The experiment was carried out on 60 healthy men, aged 20 to 45, supporters of two historically rival clubs. “Degree of fanaticism” was quantified using a 13-point scale measuring two subdimensions: inclination toward violence and sense of belonging. The men watched 63 goal sequences involving either their favorite team, an opposing team, or a neutral team.
During these sequences, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a method for measuring brain activity by observing changes in blood flow. And according to Dr. Zamorano, “Rivalry rapidly shifts the balance between evaluation and control in the brain within seconds“.
Victory or defeat, everything is amplified in the event of rivalry
“In case of significant victory, the reward circuit is amplified compared to victories without rivalry, while in case of significant defeat, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), which plays an important role in cognitive control, shows a paradoxical suppression of control signals. specifies the researcher. Paradoxical suppression refers to the attempt to suppress a thought, feeling, or behavior that results in the opposite effect.
Activation of reward system regions was greater when participants’ teams scored against rival opponents rather than non-rival opponents, suggesting a strengthening of in-group bonding and social identity.
Dr. Zamorano notes that this effect is strongest among the most enthusiastic participants, which predicts a momentary lapse in self-regulation precisely when identity is threatened and explains the disconcerting ability of otherwise rational individuals to suddenly “change their minds” during matches.
Schematically:
- When your favorite team wins, your brain activates as if it were “rewarding” you and reinforcing your belonging to the group. This is the area of ”yes, I’m part of this club, I’m in the game“.
- When it loses, your brain activates the areas that make you think, but those that help you keep your cool are less efficient. The peaks of anger would be “physiological”.
A cerebral mechanism that can be extrapolated to political or sectarian fanaticism
According to the authors, this same neural signature – increase in reward, decrease in control in rivalry situations – probably generalizes beyond sport, to political and sectarian conflicts.
The neural findings identify mechanisms that may inform communication, crowd management, and prevention strategies during high-stakes events, including reward amplification and downregulation of control in rivalry situations, Dr. Zamorano noted.
Taking the example of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, the researcher states: “Studying fanaticism is essential because it reveals generalizable neural mechanisms capable of transforming fan fervor into polarization, violence and serious harm to public health.“he said.”In short, studying fanaticism is not a simple descriptive approach: it is prevention that takes development into account, which protects public health and strengthens democratic cohesion“.
Prevention begins in childhood
Finally, he emphasizes that “these neural circuits are forged from early childhood: the quality of care, exposure to stress and social learning shape the balance between valuation and control which, later, makes individuals vulnerable to fanatical discourse. Therefore, protecting children is the most effective prevention strategy. Societies that neglect early development do not escape fanaticism; they inherit the misdeeds“. If education does not provide a good foundation, a person can become more vulnerable to extreme attachment to a group. Researchers say that understanding this mechanism also means protecting society.