Contact sport participation predicts instrumental aggression, not hostile aggression, within competition: quasi-experimental evidence

Sherrill, Andrew M.; Bradel, Lauren T.

doi:10.1108/jacpr-01-2016-0207

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Consistent with this, the group difference in anger experience did not extend to situational anger reactivity, as indexed by the NPI. Our results are in agreement with those of Sherrill and Bradel (2017) who found that men who participated in contact sports displayed higher instrumental, but not hostile (reactive), aggression compared with a control group. Similarly, Ueno et al (2017) observed a difference in the Machiavellianism component of the Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), which strongly correlates with primary psychopathy (Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006), in athletes as a function of their competitive level.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Brain structural correlates of psychopathic traits in elite female combat‐sports athletes

González‐Alemañy,

Rodríguez Olivera,

Bobes

et al. 2023

Eur J of Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Psychopathy is characterized by glibness and superficial charm, as well as a lack of empathy, guilt and remorse, and is often accompanied by antisocial behaviour. The cerebral bases of this syndrome have been mostly studied in violent subjects or those with a criminal history. However, the antisocial component of psychopathy is not central to its conceptualization, and in fact, psychopathic traits are present in well‐adjusted, non‐criminal individuals within the general population. Interestingly, certain psychopathy characteristics appear to be particularly pronounced in some groups or professions. Importantly, as these so‐called adaptive or successful psychopaths do not show antisocial tendencies or have significant psychiatric comorbidities, they may represent an ideal population to study this trait. Here, we investigated such a group, specifically elite female judo athletes, and compared them with matched non‐athletes. Participants completed psychopathy, anger, perspective‐taking and empathic concern questionnaires and underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Grey matter volume (GMV) was computed using voxel‐based morphometry from the T1‐weighted images. Athletes scored significantly higher in primary psychopathy and anger and lower in empathy and perspective taking. They also exhibited smaller GMV in the right temporal pole, left occipital cortex and left amygdala/hippocampus. GMV values for the latter cluster significantly correlated with primary psychopathy scores across both groups. These results confirm and extend previous findings to a little‐studied population and provide support for the conceptualization of psychopathy as a dimensional personality trait which not only is not necessarily associated with antisocial behaviour but may potentially have adaptive value.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Brain structural correlates of psychopathic traits in elite female combat‐sports athletes

González‐Alemañy,

Rodríguez Olivera,

Bobes

et al. 2023

Eur J of Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Consistent with this, the group difference in anger experience did not extend to situational anger reactivity, as indexed by the Novaco Provocation Index. Our results are in agreement with those of Sherrill & Bradel (2017) (Sherrill & Bradel, 2017) who found that men who participated in contact sports displayed higher instrumental, but not hostile (reactive), aggression compared to a control group. Similarly, Ueno and colleagues (2017) (Ueno et al, 2017) observed a difference in the Machiavellianism component of the Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), which strongly correlates with primary psychopathy (Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006), in athletes as a function of their competitive level.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Brain structural correlates of psychopathic traits in elite female combat-sports athletes

González-Alemañy

Armony

Rodríguez-Olivera³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Psychopathy is characterized by glibness and superficial charm, as well as a lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse, and is often accompanied by antisocial behavior. The cerebral bases of this syndrome have been mostly studied in violent subjects or those with a criminal history. However, the antisocial component of psychopathy is not central to its conceptualization and, in fact, psychopathic traits are present in well-adjusted, non-criminal individuals within the general population. Interestingly, certain psychopathy characteristics appear to be particularly pronounced in some groups or professions. Importantly, as these so-called adaptive or successful psychopaths do not show antisocial tendencies or have significant psychiatric comorbidities, they may represent an ideal population to study this trait. Here we investigated such a group, specifically elite female judo athletes, and compared them to matched non-athletes. Participants completed psychopathy, anger, perspective-taking and empathic concern questionnaires and underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Grey matter density (GMD) was computed using voxel-based morphometry from the T1-weighted images. Athletes scored significantly higher in primary psychopathy and anger, and lower in empathy and perspective taking. They also exhibited smaller GMD in the right Temporal Pole, left Occipital Cortex, and left Amygdala/Hippocampus. GMD values for the latter cluster significantly correlated with primary psychopathy scores across both groups. These results confirm and extend previous findings to a little-studied population and provide support for the conceptualization of psychopathy as a dimensional personality trait which, not only is not necessarily associated with antisocial behavior, but may potentially have adaptive value.

show abstract

“…This may be caused by the small sample size since, although not significant, the score of the athlete group is slightly higher than the control group. Thus, the present study indicated that athletes showed higher aggression than non-athletes, which may be caused by the excessive physical contact with other players in training and competition (Trivedi and Pinto, 2015; Sherrill and Bradel, 2017). But there is no doubt that we need to increase the sample size to consolidate this conclusion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

The Approach Behavior to Angry Words in Athletes—A Pilot Study

Xia

Zhang

Wang

et al. 2019

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An increasing number of studies have found that athletes have a higher level of aggression than non-athletes. Anger is an important factor in the generation of aggressive behavior, and anger has been found to relate to both approach behavior and avoidance behavior. The present pilot study compared the aggression level of athletes and non-athletes using the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, and examined the responses of participants to anger-related stimuli using the manikin task, a paradigm that measures approach-avoidance behavior. In total, 15 athletes and 15 non-athletes finished the questionnaire and the manikin task, which included two conditions. In the anger approach condition, participants were asked to approach anger-associated words and to avoid neutral words. The instructions for the anger avoidance condition were the opposite (i.e., move away from the anger-associated words and toward the neutral words). Brain activity was recorded during the manikin task. Results showed that, compared with non-athletes, athletes had significantly higher physical aggression on the questionnaire. The athlete group showed significantly shorter reaction times in anger approach condition than anger avoidance condition. Theta oscillation activity induced during the anger approach condition was significantly lower than that during the anger avoidance condition in the athlete group. No significant correlation was found in present pilot study. These findings may suggest that when anger-related stimuli are present, athletes are more likely to approach, indicating stronger behavioral approach motivation that may result in aggressive behavior.

show abstract

Contact sport participation predicts instrumental aggression, not hostile aggression, within competition: quasi-experimental evidence

Cited by 8 publications

References 40 publications

Brain structural correlates of psychopathic traits in elite female combat‐sports athletes

Brain structural correlates of psychopathic traits in elite female combat‐sports athletes

Brain structural correlates of psychopathic traits in elite female combat-sports athletes

The Approach Behavior to Angry Words in Athletes—A Pilot Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About