Tears and blood, pounding hearts, hymns sung at the top of their lungs, unbridled joy, joy and despair. Whether in the stands or sitting in front of the screen with your closest friends, for football fans, their favorite team’s match is like a roller coaster ride of emotions. And it starts at an early age: the love of football is a religion, a belief born ‘in the cradle’matured over the years and took it to the grave. Questions about the brain, about the circuits that form in the first years of life. This was discovered by a team of scientists who studied models of the brains of football fans and found that several regions were activated when watching their team’s matches, triggering both positive and negative emotions and behavior. The study was published in the journal ‘Radiology’ and the authors believe that the same model can also be applied to other types of fanaticism.
Investigation of rival team fans
Why start with football? Because, they explain, this is a global phenomenon and those addicted to this sport exhibit a wide spectrum of behavior, from being a spectator to intense emotional involvement, providing a useful model for studying social identity and emotional processes in competitive situations. Rivalries, as we know, are rooted in sports history and fans can be very protective against your favorite team and your favorite players. Observing their successes and failures, they experience a variety of feelings, elated when they score a goal or becoming angry because of a foul. Followers of the ‘balloon god’ are known for their loyalty and enthusiasm, especially in Europe and South America, experts continued. Hence the genesis of this research.
“Soccer support provides a very valid model of fanaticism with measurable consequences for collective health and behavior”, says lead author, Francisco Zamorano (incidentally, in Italy the surname favored by ‘crazy Inter’ fans), biologist and professor at Universidad San Sebastián, Santiago de Chile. “The neurobiological mechanisms of social identity in competitive contexts are unclear, so we decided to investigate the brain dynamics associated with football fans’ emotional responses to their team’s wins and losses.”
For the study, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, to examine this 60 healthy male soccer fans (aged 20-45 years) from two historic rival teams. The level of fanaticism was measured with the ‘Football Supporter Fanaticism Scale’, a 13-point scale that evaluates two sub-dimensions: propensity towards violence and sense of entitlement. Brain imaging data was obtained while participants watched 63 match goal sequences, involving their favorite team, an opposing team, or a neutral team. Whole brain analysis was then performed compared neural responses when participants watched their favorite teams scoring a goal against a nemesis (a significant win) compared to when a nemesis scores against his team (a significant loss).
How the brain changes if you win or lose
Functional MRI results show that brain activity changes depending on whether the fan’s team wins or loses. “Competition changes the balance between evaluation and control of the brain in a matter of seconds,” explains Zamorano.
So what goes through a fan’s mind? “In cases of significant wins, reward circuits in the brain are strengthened, while in cases of significant defeats, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which plays an important role in cognitive control, shows paradoxical suppression of control signals.” This paradoxical oppression refers to an attempt to suppress thoughts, feelings, or behaviorand produces the opposite result. When the study participants’ team scored a goal against its arch-rival, greater activation was seen in regions of the reward system compared to ‘neutral’ goals, indicating group bonding and strengthening of social identity. Zamorano observed that the effect was strongest among the most fanatical fans, predicting momentary failures in self-regulation precisely when identity was threatened and explaining the surprising ability of rational people to suddenly “change their minds” during games.
“From a clinical point of view, the model implies a state-dependent vulnerability, where a brief cooling or removal of the trigger” the spark that triggers the emotion “can allow the control system to recover,” the researcher continued. “The same neural signature – increased reward and decreased control in competition – may be generalizable beyond sport, and could be applied to political and sectarian conflict.”
Mechanism of fanaticism
Studying bigotry, Zamorano continues, “is important because it reveals generalizable neural mechanisms, from stage passions to violence and adverse health outcomes at the population level. More importantly, these same circuits are established in childhood,” thereby establishing “an evaluation-control balance that then makes a person susceptible to the appeal of bigotry. Protecting childhood is therefore the most effective prevention strategy. Societies that ignore early development do not avoid bigotry; they inherit its harmful effects.” Addressing this is urgent for Zamorano, given the current global conflict and political narrative. Experts give an example attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021which shows how political fanaticism can trump democratic norms when identity fusion reaches a critical point. “Participants showed classic signs of impaired cognitive control, exactly as found in our study – he concluded – Investigating fanaticism is therefore not just a descriptive measure: it is a form of prevention that can protect public health and strengthen democratic cohesion”.
