A new study published by PLOS ONE might shine a light on who’s behind many of those mean tweets and comments that one in four women between 18-24 say they’ve been a victim of, and we’re guessing you won’t be surprised by the results.

According to the study, men with low self-esteem may be more likely to attack women online than men who feel good about themselves. (Shocking, we know…)

To conduct the study, researchers had 163 groups of men and women play a video game against each other. The only thing they knew about the other players was their gender. When the men performed poorly, their attitudes toward the other men playing stayed the same—but they started saying nasty things to and about the female players.

According to the study’s authors, men who are losing the game aren’t just annoyed—they may actually feel threatened by the women. “Low-status and low-performing males have the most to lose as a consequence of the hierarchical reconfiguration due to the entry of a competitive woman,” wrote the authors in the text of the study.

In the same study, the authors also hypothesize that low-performing males might be harping on women to (probably unconsciously) try to lower their self-esteem and increase their chances of getting with them.

However, men who feel good about their performance don’t necessarily feel the need to lash out. “Higher-skilled (i.e., more dominant) males do not behave in this manner, as there is no need for them to reinforce their dominance to maintain their attractiveness,” the authors state in the study.

The study also concludes that with more and more women entering male spaces (like video games and online platforms), men are going to have to take note and change offensive behaviors like the ones exhibited in this research.

“A way to counter it may be through teaching young males that losing to the opposite sex is not socially debilitating,” write the authors. Just another reason why we’d love to see the U.S. Women’s Soccer team take the men’s team to task.

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