The rejection or aversion to competitive games, such as poker or interactive online platforms, observed since childhood in gifted individuals with high emotional intensity, can be understood based on the integration between neurobiological substrates and cognitive value constructs. The question that arises is: why do brains with high cognitive abilities, instead of engaging in competitive pleasure, demonstrate rejection of this type of playful stimulus?
1. Neural Architecture of the Gifted and Sensitivity to Competitive Conflict.
The DWRI (Development of Wide Regions of Intellectual Interference) theory describes that brains with high cognitive scores present greater functional connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9/46), the temporoparietal junction, and the limbic system. This connectivity expands the integration between abstract reasoning, social intelligence, and emotional response. Games like poker involve bluffing, manipulation, and risk calculation—processes that, in this profile, activate not only dopaminergic reward circuits, but also nuclei related to threat detection (amygdala) and moral coherence (orbitofrontal cortex). The result is an emotional overload that transforms the game into discomfort, not entertainment.
2. Emotional Intensity and Devaluation of Superficiality
Gifted individuals often demonstrate, from an early age, a heightened awareness of finitude, death, and the fragility of existence. This characteristic, linked to the integrated activity between the default mode network (DMN) and the medial prefrontal cortex, orients thinking toward more existential and altruistic values. Competitive games are then perceived as superficial or artificial practices, with no relevance to the construction of meaning or the strengthening of bonds. Aversion, therefore, is not only emotional, but also axiological.
3. Neurotransmitters, Motivation, and Reward:
Dopamine and serotonin play a central role in the mechanisms of pleasure and motivation. In highly sensitive brains, such as those of gifted individuals, dopaminergic stimulation associated with chance or social manipulation may not generate the expected reinforcement, but rather increase anxiety and discomfort. In contrast, constructive and intellectually challenging activities, which activate cortical networks of creativity and logical reasoning, offer genuine positive reinforcement.
4. Social Intelligence and Ethical Values
: Profiles of high emotional and social intelligence, often associated with giftedness, manifest a strong tendency toward altruism, integrity, and a valuing of authenticity. Poker, structured around concealing intentions and overlapping individual interests, clashes with this moral standard. The conflict is not only cognitive, but also ethical, reinforcing aversion.
Conclusion
Aversion to competitive games in gifted individuals with high emotional intensity results from a multifactorial interaction: (1) neural hyperconnectivity that increases the perception of social and moral incoherence, (2) early awareness of the superficiality of competitive practices, (3) dissonance in dopaminergic reward circuits, and (4) alignment with ethical and altruistic values. In short, competitive games do not find space as a source of pleasure in this profile, but rather as a dissonant stimulus that violates the coherence between cognition, emotion, and values.
References
RODRIGUES, Fabiano de Abreu Agrela. Neurobiology and Foundations of Intelligence DWRI. 2023. Academic manuscript.
RODRIGUES, Fabiano de Abreu Agrela. The relationship between constant thinking about death, altruistic behavior, the devaluation of superficiality, and intelligence. 2022.
GORIOUNOVA, NA; MANSVELDER, HD Genes, Cells and Brain Areas of Intelligence. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 13, p. 44, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00044.
