Winning Makes People More Aggressive Toward the Defeated - updated

One of the people who did the study made a correction to my comment. See the end of this post, and the comments.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120229104746.htm

ScienceDaily (Feb. 29, 2012) — In this world, there are winners and losers -- and, for your own safety, it is best to fear the winners. A new study found that winners -- those who outperformed others on a competitive task -- acted more aggressively against the people they beat than the losers did against the victors.

"It seems that people have a tendency to stomp down on those they have defeated, to really rub it in," said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.

"Losers, on the other hand, don't really act any more aggressively than normal against those who defeated them."

Bushman said this is the first study to examine whether winners or losers were more likely to act aggressively.

[...]

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Actually not the first study. Some years ago, I read of research that found that fans of winning sports teams were more likely to commit acts of violence.

Note the authors of the study corrected me on this. See their comment. Theirs was the first experimental study. The studies I have previously seen, such as the one I referred to, were observational studies, which are useful, but need to be backed up by more rigorous research, such as this.


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