Overview
- Sixty male fans aged 20 to 45 watched 63 goal sequences in an fMRI experiment comparing favorite-team goals, archrival goals, and neutral plays.
- Significant victories over a rival heightened activation in reward-related regions compared with non-rival wins, reinforcing in-group identity.
- Significant defeats to a rival produced paradoxical suppression of control signals in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, indicating compromised cognitive control.
- Stronger effects appeared in highly fanatic participants, which the authors say helps explain brief self-regulatory failures that can trigger sudden extreme behavior.
- The study, published in Radiology and led by Francisco Zamorano in Santiago, proposes applications to political and sectarian contexts and highlights early-life development as a prevention lever, while noting the male-only sample limits generalizability.