Watching your favourite football team lose acts as a switch that shuts down the brain’s cognitive control centre, leading to “momentary self-regulatory failure,” according to new brain scan research.
The study, published in the journal Radiology, focused on “soccer” fandom to understand the neurological roots of extreme social identity and fanaticism.
Researchers used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine 60 male fans, aged 20 to 45, while they watched highlights of their favourite teams winning and losing. The results revealed that high-stakes rivalry triggers intense neural responses that can override normal brain function.
When a team wins, the brain’s reward circuitry is activated, reinforcing social identity and fostering bonding. However, the reaction to a loss is far more drastic.
“Rivalry rapidly reconfigures the brain’s valuation–control balance within seconds,” said lead author Francisco Zamorano. “With significant victory, the reward circuitry in the brain is amplified relative to non-rival wins, whereas in significant defeat the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) — which plays an important role in cognitive control — shows paradoxical suppression of control signals.”
Paradoxical suppression
This “paradoxical suppression” interrupts the brain’s ability to regulate behaviour, potentially explaining why otherwise rational individuals can suddenly “flip” and become aggressive or irrational during a match.
The researchers noted that this effect is strongest in the most “fanatical” participants. They warn that these neural circuits are likely forged in early life through social learning and caregiving quality, suggesting that protecting childhood development is a key strategy for preventing future radicalisation.
While the study focused on sport, the authors argue the findings likely extend to other forms of tribalism, including political and sectarian conflicts.
“Studying fanaticism matters because it reveals generalizable neural mechanisms that can scale from stadium passion to polarisation, violence and population-level public-health harm,” Dr. Zamorano said. “Most importantly, these very circuits are forged in early life: caregiving quality, stress exposure, and social learning sculpt the valuation–control balance that later makes individuals vulnerable to fanatic appeals.
“Therefore, protecting childhood is the most powerful prevention strategy. Societies that neglect early development do not avoid fanaticism; they inherit its harms.”
