Sportsmen behaving badly are likely a product of their environment
July 3, 2009
Footballers getting into trouble may not be entirely to blame, writes Andrew Stevenson.
Another Saturday night, another debacle. Young footballers annoy a group of drinkers and get into a fight - despite knowing they are public targets, despite the lectures, warnings and examples of the fate they face. What were they thinking or on? Answers: nothing and nothing illegal.
It's likely alcohol was a factor but perhaps more relevant was their hormonal profile - the cocktail of testosterone, cortisol and various enzymes that influence the way those hormones impact on the body.
For what is known about the impact of testosterone among men, much more remains undiscovered, unclear or contested. Testosterone goes up before a game and stays up after a victory: but how long does it stay up? High testosterone leads some men into all manner of trouble; in others it predicts success in business. But if testosterone predicts physical strength and the likelihood to take physical risks it seems reasonable to suppose it has more than a passing connection with rugby league players.
Psychologists know testosterone rises before a competitive experience - in chess players as in footballers. They know it gets higher before home games than it does when you play away and they know it stays high after victory. So what state were the Roosters' players in at 3am at The Tank nightclub on Sunday in a confrontation with other men - less than six hours after their first victory (at home) in nearly two months? Research would indicate high levels of testosterone coursing through their bodies.
And the consequences? Consider the views of an expert in the field, Professor Bob Josephs of the University of Texas: "One can get pretty dysfunctional if one is high in testosterone and one loses a dominance battle. This dysfunction can appear as emotional distress, an inability to concentrate, an increase in stress hormones and other sorts of short-term psychological and physiological adverse reactions."
Professor of behavioral neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta, David Edwards, says testosterone has been linked to many physical and psychological traits over the years, including sexual desire, physical strength, aggression and other anti-social behaviours. But the social context is crucial. The adulation and sense of entitlement rugby players feel may compound their behavioural problems.
"Testosterone fuels sexual appetite and the desire to assert one's dominance," Edwards says. "Behaviours rooted in these motivational states may be particularly on display in individuals who feel the usual rules of conduct do not apply."
But the social context extends further than a sense of entitlement. Psychologists see those men who are high in testosterone driven to dominate their culture - whatever the culture might be.
According to Frank McAndrew, Professor of psychology at Knox College, Illinois, " testosterone kind of revs you up to do whatever it is you feel the group will respect".
"If you happen to end up in a situation where violent behaviour or bad treatment of women is what the group values, that's what you will do. But if the group had very different norms you would strive for whatever those norms were," he says.
But testosterone will have different effects on different people. Psychologists once believed testosterone was the missing link to understand why men sometimes behaved like the missing link. The notion has been swept aside by inconsistent results: now researchers are trying to find what affects its impact on the body.
It's reasonable to suppose that, just like alcohol, the same dose might have different effects on people. Bob Josephs cites recent studies that tie testosterone - and either another hormone such as cortisol or an enzyme - to a more definitive link with aggression.
What about rugby players? Participating in such an aggressive sport may attract players higher, or more affected, by testosterone, some psychologists believe. And they may be affected differently by the hormone if they were compared with other people.
"We know testosterone levels might be very high in these athletes in certain situations, or they may remain higher for much longer after competition than in other people or they might reach a peak during those competitions that most of us were not able to achieve," says Doug Granger, Professor of biobehavioural health at Penn State University.
And if they are high in testosterone, watch out, says Nick Neave, an evolutionary psychologist from Northumbria University. Players after a victory - just like soldiers after battle - feed off each other, amplifying the bad behaviour.
"If you took a gang of rugby players who'd been doing lots of physical training, who'd won a game and were hyped up and their levels of testosterone were very high and you put them in a church maybe nothing would happen. If you put them in a strip club you may get lots of different effects," he said.
Throw in a dose of modern celebrity culture and a female audience and trouble is even more likely to build.
"You've got these young men in the prime of their athletic life. Women want them because they're famous, they're healthy, attractive and, yes, they're probably high in testosterone, they're in a social situation that rewards them for being high in testosterone and they're going to take opportunities," Neave says.
"You can't blame them really: they're only doing what nature has primed them to do."
