The science of sports-fan trash-talk
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach.”
That iconic line from the classic movie Cool Hand Luke (1967) is a common explanation of why people disagree — on politics, sports, religion on any other topic. It also implies a solution — if we just got folks with divergent opinions into the same room, they could probably work out their differences and get along better.
New research shows that optimistic view might be unwarranted, at least in the male-dominated world of sports trash-talking.
Cornell’s Kevin M. Kniffin defines trash-talking as “boastful comments about the self or insulting comments about an opponent that are delivered by a competitor typically before or during a competition.” Kniffin also notes that “men appear to trash-talk significantly more than women, and … contact sports such as football, hockey, lacrosse, and wrestling are associated with trash talk significantly more than other sports.” Armchair athletes, who spew their comments at the TV or in cyberspace, hurl their share of invective too.
Researchers led by Jason Zhang at the University of Colorado, Boulder did a systematic analysis of over two million online comments in the National Basketball Association discussion forums on Reddit. They compared people who communicated mainly within their own team’s fan group with those who reached out into discussions of opposing teams.
Their conclusion: “Our results show that members with intergroup contact use more negative and abusive language in their affiliated group than those without such contact, after controlling for activity levels.”
In other words, contact with “the other side” results in more swear words, and more hate speech comments in the user’s own team’s discussion. The hierarchical structure of Reddit, one of the world’s largest online discussion groups, made it easy for the Colorado researchers to gather their data.
Looking at online commentary gives us interesting insights, but can we actually peer into the brains of people who do trashtalking? In a paper called “Us Versus Them: Social Identity Shapes Neural Responses to Intergroup Competition and Harm” Harvard University psychologist Mina Cikara did just that, again in a sports context.
She put avid fans of two longtime baseball rivals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, into an FMRI machine to study which areas of their brains were activated in various circumstances.
Subjectively negative outcomes (your team losing, the other team winning) activated the anterior cingulate cortex and insula. That’s neuroscience talk for areas of the brain that, among other things, play a role in controlling and managing uncomfortable emotions and dealing with unexpected setbacks.
On the other hand, positive outcomes activated the ventral striatum, which has a lot to do with pleasure, action planning, motivation, and reward perception. One of the key findings in the Harvard study was, “The ventral striatum effect, associated with subjective pleasure, also correlated with self-reported likelihood of aggressing against a fan of the rival team (controlling for general aggression).” While face to face brawls are unlikely on Reddit, they certainly happen in sports venues, notably at soccer games. Remember the 2011 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver, which did $5 million in damage and reportedly injured 140 people.
Does all this research apply outside of the wide world of sports? The Colorado authors argue that, “The sports context might be a strong case for understanding intergroup relations, as all the teams are created to compete with each other for the final championship. The expression of hostile attitudes toward opposing sides are culturally acceptable and even encouraged.” They acknowledge that comments from, say, fans of different musicians, might be substantially different, because it’s not a winner take all game.
But wait a minute! Politics shares many of the characteristics of cutthroat sports rivalries, as the recent Canadian election and upcoming American one clearly demonstrate.
We hear about echo-chamber effects in which people only read news that confirms things they already believe. Facebook is currently testing Facebook News, which they say “gives people more control over the stories they see, and the ability to explore a wider range of their news interests, directly within the Facebook app.”
It’s apparently a pet project of Mark Zuckerberg, but not without controversy. Only certain news sources will be included. These reportedly include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and digital only sites like Buzzfeed and Business Insider. Conspicuously absent, at least for now, are some of the right-wing publications like Breitbart News, the Washington Examiner, the
Daily Caller, and Worldnet Daily.
David Kupelian, vice president and managing editor of WND, has called Facebook’s news project “a software tool … to suppress conservative news and opinion and promote liberal and even socialist news and opinion on the Facebook platform.” He even charges that Facebook is trying to “steal the 2020 election” from Donald Trump.
It’s not likely that Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Kupelian, or the Trashtalker-in-chief will come into an MRI lab anytime soon so we can peer into their brains. But the fascinating research coming out of the world of sports might give us a pretty good idea.
Dr. Tom Keenan is an award-winning journalist, public speaker, professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Calgary, and author of the best-selling book, Technocreep: The Surrender of Privacy and the Capitalization of Intimacy.