Revenge is Sweet
"Taking revenge is good for your mental health
Swiss study involving brain scans on volunteers reveals that the brain derives satisfaction from punishing cheats
REVENGE is sweet. Many of us have felt that way, and now scientists say they know why.
A new brain-imaging study suggests we feel satisfaction when we punish others for bad behaviour, says the National Geographic News website.
In fact, anticipation of this pleasure drives us to crack the whip, according to scientists behind the new research.
The findings, reported in today's issue of the journal Science, may partly explain a behaviour known as altruistic punishment: Why we reprimand people who have abused our trust or broken other social rules, even when we get no direct practical benefits in return.
Brain scans of volunteers playing a game revealed that a region of the brain associated with satisfaction was activated when players penalised cheats.
'A person who has been cheated is in a bad situation - with bad feelings,' said study co-author Ernst Fehr, who is director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. 'The person would feel even worse if the cheat does not get her or his just punishment.'
Human societies are an anomaly in the animal world, said National Geographic News.
They are based on a detailed division of labour and cooperation between genetically unrelated individuals in large groups.
Professor Fehr and his colleagues suggest that the feeling of satisfaction people get from meting out altruistic punishment may be the glue that keeps societies together.
'Theory and experimental evidence show that cooperation among strangers is greatly enhanced by altruistic punishment,' Prof Fehr said.
'Cooperation among strangers breaks down in experiments if altruistic punishment is ruled out. Cooperation flourishes if punishment of defectors is possible.'
Writing in an accompanying Science commentary, Dr Brian Knutson, a psychologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, described as 'elegant' the experiment the Swiss team used to show 'this complex emotional dynamic of schadenfreude' - the pleasure felt over someone else's misfortune."
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Must let the avenger in me emerge :P
Swiss study involving brain scans on volunteers reveals that the brain derives satisfaction from punishing cheats
REVENGE is sweet. Many of us have felt that way, and now scientists say they know why.
A new brain-imaging study suggests we feel satisfaction when we punish others for bad behaviour, says the National Geographic News website.
In fact, anticipation of this pleasure drives us to crack the whip, according to scientists behind the new research.
The findings, reported in today's issue of the journal Science, may partly explain a behaviour known as altruistic punishment: Why we reprimand people who have abused our trust or broken other social rules, even when we get no direct practical benefits in return.
Brain scans of volunteers playing a game revealed that a region of the brain associated with satisfaction was activated when players penalised cheats.
'A person who has been cheated is in a bad situation - with bad feelings,' said study co-author Ernst Fehr, who is director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. 'The person would feel even worse if the cheat does not get her or his just punishment.'
Human societies are an anomaly in the animal world, said National Geographic News.
They are based on a detailed division of labour and cooperation between genetically unrelated individuals in large groups.
Professor Fehr and his colleagues suggest that the feeling of satisfaction people get from meting out altruistic punishment may be the glue that keeps societies together.
'Theory and experimental evidence show that cooperation among strangers is greatly enhanced by altruistic punishment,' Prof Fehr said.
'Cooperation among strangers breaks down in experiments if altruistic punishment is ruled out. Cooperation flourishes if punishment of defectors is possible.'
Writing in an accompanying Science commentary, Dr Brian Knutson, a psychologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, described as 'elegant' the experiment the Swiss team used to show 'this complex emotional dynamic of schadenfreude' - the pleasure felt over someone else's misfortune."
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Must let the avenger in me emerge :P