Low competitiveness induces aggression in healthy young men: behavioral and neural evidence. 

Macià Buades-Rotger, Martin Göttlich, Ronja Weiblen, Pauline Petereit, Thomas Scheidt, Brian G Keevil, Ulrike M Krämer, "Low competitiveness elicits aggression in healthy young men : Behavioral and Neural Evidence, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2021;, 1", https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab061

Commentary

In this study, it is generally believed that winners compete more aggressively than losers. Therefore, a study was conducted that analyzed the behaviors of the top and bottom performers in a competition.

The study showed that the lower ranked teams commit more fouls than they receive during the competition. This was replicated in an experiment that showed that male participants delivered louder blasts to their rivals when they were placed in lower positions. We then used neuroimaging to characterize the brain activity patterns that encode the competitive state and the brain activity patterns that promote aggression, dependent on the state of the healthy young male.

This analysis revealed three important findings.

・The anterior hippocampus and striatum contain multivariate representations of competitive states.

・Inter-individual differences in state-dependent aggression are linked to sharper state differentiation in the striatum and greater reactivity to victory, which reinforces the state of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex.

・Activity in the ventral medial, ventral lateral, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices is associated with a trial-like increase in state-dependent aggressive behavior.

This feature contradicts the narrative that glorifies aggression in competitive situations, and indicates that individuals lower in the skill-based hierarchy are more likely to act aggressively and are more likely to identify the potential neural basis for this phenomenon.