Revenge serves a very useful purpose \u2013 even the idea of seeking it gives us pleasure. Why is this?
\n ________<\/p>\n
A tale of revenge is always bittersweet. Take the sack of Troy, as depicted in Homer\u2019s epic poem The Iliad. When Paris steals away Helen, her husband King Menelaus cannot bear the injustice and seeks to attack her seducer. He brings an entire army to Troy, waging a lengthy war that kills thousands.<\/p>\n
The theme of revenge spirals through the entire narrative. When Achilles\u2019 best friend and cousin Patroklus is killed, he too seeks a reckless and bloody revenge.<\/p>\n
Revenge has been part of human behavior for almost as long as we have existed on Earth. Literature has used it throughout history, from Greek tragedies such as Aeschylus\u2019 Oresteia trilogy \u2013 where Orestes wants to murder his mother to avenge his father \u2013 to Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet .<\/p>\n
Many of us have no doubt imagined vengeance against those who have wronged us, or even lashed out at them. In the moment, it can certainly feel cathartic to do so. But what motivates us to seek revenge in the first place? Researchers are gradually getting some answers, and they are finding that revenge has some unexpected upsides.<\/p>\n
Revenge is a powerful emotional trigger that mobilizes people into action. \u201cIt\u2019s this very pervasive experience in human lives, people from every society understand the idea of getting angry and wanting to hurt someone who has harmed you,\u201d says evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough, of the University of Miami, who has spent over a decade studying revenge and forgiveness.<\/p>\n
It drives crime \u2013 up to 20% of homicides[1] and 60% of school shootings [2] are linked to revenge, studies show. And it shapes politics too. Donald Trump\u2019s presidential victory, for instance, came as a result of \u201crevenge of working-class whites … who felt abandoned by a rapidly globalizing economy,\u201d according to an article in the Washington Post.[3] The same sentiment is echoed by many other outlets.[4]<\/p>\n
While the topic of aggression is well-studied \u2013 its triggers include alcohol,[5] being insulted [6] and narcissistic personality traits [7] \u2013 revenge is lesser understood. It is not easy to untangle from violent behavior, making it a difficult topic to study. David Chester of Virginia Commonwealth University was initially studying aggression but quickly realized that there is often a lot more going on before a violent interaction. He refers to the emotions involved as the \u201cpsychological middlemen\u201d \u2013 the thoughts and feelings that come between a provocation and an aggressive outcome. \u201cI was curious, how do you take something like [receiving] an insult and how do you go from that to an aggressive response.\u201d The key, he believes, lies in the desire to retaliate. \u201cSo by the nature of trying to understand aggression I started studying revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
He set out to uncover more about what causes it. First he, along with his colleague Nathan DeWall of the University of Kentucky, discovered that a person who is insulted or socially rejected feels an emotional pain.[8] The area in the brain associated with pain was most active in participants who went on to react with an aggressive response after feeling rejected. \u201cIt\u2019s tapping into an ancient evolved tendency to respond to threats and harm with aggressive retaliation,\u201d says Chester.<\/p>\n
In a follow-up study he was surprised to find that emotional pain was intricately yoked with pleasure.[9] That is, while rejection initially feels painful, it can quickly be masked by pleasure when presented with the opportunity to get revenge \u2013 it even activates the brain\u2019s known reward circuit, the nucleus accumbens. People who are provoked behave aggressively precisely because it can be \u201chedonically rewarding\u201d, Chester found. Revenge it seems really can be sweet.<\/p>\n
The link between aggression and pleasure itself is not new. The \u201cfather of psychology\u201d Sigmund Freud was well aware that it could feel cathartic to behave aggressively, but the idea that revenge provides its own special form of pleasure has only become apparent recently.<\/p>\n
To understand this further, Chester and DeWall set up a series of experiments, published in the March 2017 journal of Personality and Social Psychology , where the participants were made to feel rejected by being purposely left out of a computerized ball tossing game.[10] All participants were then allowed to put pins in a virtual voodoo doll. Those in the rejected camp stabbed their doll with significantly more pins. This rejection test was first done remotely online and later replicated with different participants brought into the lab. In the lab version, rather than a voodoo doll, participants acted out their \u201crevenge\u201d by blasting a prolonged, unpleasantly loud noise to their opponents (who were computers, not real people, which the participants were not aware of). Again, those that felt most rejected subjected their rivals to longer noise blasts.<\/p>\n
Lastly, to understand the role of emotion in the desire to seek revenge, Chester and DeWall gave participants what they believed was a mood-inhibiting drug (it was in fact only a harmless vitamin tablet). Still, the placebo effect was so strong that the participants who took the \u201cdrug\u201d didn\u2019t bother to retaliate against the people who rejected them \u2013 whereas those that were not given the placebo acted far more aggressively. The placebo group, it seems, did not seek revenge because they believed they would feel no pleasure from doing so.<\/p>\n
Taking these results together the team came to a startling conclusion. Not only can revenge give people pleasure, but people seek it precisely because of the anticipation it will do so. \u201cIt\u2019s about the experience of regulating emotions,\u201d says Chester. And it worked. After having the opportunity to get revenge, the rejected individuals scored the same on mood tests as those who had not been rejected.<\/p>\n
This finding, however, does need to be taken with a necessary pinch of salt. There are currently no long-term follow up studies on how revenge feels days or weeks after the act. Preliminary \u2013 as yet unpublished results \u2013 show that revenge-seekers only get a momentary feeling of pleasure, Chester found. \u201cJust like a lot of things, it feels good in the moment. That begins a cycle and it starts to look like an addiction … then afterwards you feel worse than when you started,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
And that might help explain why those who seek the high of revenge fail to anticipate disastrous personal consequences. The footballer Zinedine Zidane, for instance, will forever be remembered for head-butting Marco Matterazzi in the 2006 World Cup. Along a similar vein, Richard Nixon is well-known for his list of foes, the goal being to \u201cscrew his political enemies\u201d.[11] Some of his dirty tricks later led to his forced resignation.<\/p>\n
The question then becomes, why has this seemingly destructive behavior persisted in our evolution if it can cause us so much trouble?<\/p>\n
The answer is that far from an evolutionary mistake, revenge serves a very useful purpose. Michael McCullough puts it this way: although people might say seeking revenge \u201cis really bad for you\u201d \u2013 that it might ruin your relationships, for example \u2013 the fact that it exists at all is a very good thing. Its main goal is to work as deterrent, which in turn has clear advantages for our survival. Consider prison or gang culture, where if you meddle with the wrong person, revenge attacks are a sure consequence. \u201cIf you have a reputation for someone who is going to seek retribution, people are not going to mess with you or take advantage,\u201d says Chester. In Leonardo DiCaprio\u2019s Oscar-winning performance in The Revenant , so powerful is his desire for revenge that it keeps him alive. With broken bones and open wounds, he drags himself through a hostile and dangerous terrain to avenge his son\u2019s killer.<\/p>\n
Even the threat of revenge might deter an attack, says McCullough. \u201cThe individual who responds to that harm is going to do better than the individual who takes the slap on the cheek and lets the bad guy have his way.\u201d Just like hunger, he considers it a primal urge that needs to be itched. Only then can the avenger move on \u201cbecause that goal has been fulfilled\u201d, in a similar way that we only stop feeling hungry after we have satiated our appetite.<\/p>\n
So if a main purpose of revenge is about deterring harm, it is a very good thing indeed. That is not to say, says McCullough, that we should encourage people to indulge in seeking revenge. \u201cWe can both appreciate what it\u2019s for, understand it\u2019s not the product of afflicted minds, and also have an interest in helping people curtail their desire for revenge,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
It might also be comforting to know that not everyone acts out on their desire to seek revenge. One 2006 study found that men get more pleasure from the idea of revenge.[12] Male participants were found to have more activity in the reward circuit of the brain than women when they saw cheating opponents receive an electric shock. In another 2008 study, Ozlem Ayduk of the University of California, Berkeley and colleagues, found that those with specific personality types were more likely to act violently after rejection.[13] She found that certain individuals had higher levels of \u201crejection sensitivity\u201d \u2013 who were more likely to expect rejection based on past experiences.<\/p>\n
These individuals were also found to be more neurotic and to show anxiety and depression. \u201cThey have this tendency to see rejection even where it doesn\u2019t exist. Rejection is an existential threat, so that expectation [of rejection] actually prepares \u2013 both mentally and physiologically \u2013 the person to defend themselves,\u201d says Ayduk. Retaliatory aggression for these individuals was therefore a \u201cknee-jerk\u201d reaction to feeling rejected.<\/p>\n
It is important to note that not everyone who has the \u201crejection sensitive profile\u201d has violent tendencies. Some deal with their feelings of rejection in other ways, such as self-harm. \u201cSomehow this makes people feel that they are in control of something. Aggression is only one of the responses,\u201d says Ayduk.<\/p>\n
As well as that, those who are more prone to retaliatory aggression can learn ways to overcome their outbursts, in a similar way that an addict can learn to control his or her urges with various psychological tactics. When Chester and DeWall peered into individuals\u2019 brains during one of their revenge studies, they found that those who were able to restrain themselves from acting out showed brain activation in the lateral pre-frontal cortex, an area known to be important for reasoning and inhibiting impulsive actions. \u201cSo we\u2019re not doomed to succumb to our revengeful impulses. We have evolved this very sophisticated pre-frontal cortex that can inhibit impulsive behavior and guide it to more social outcomes. There is hope whether we\u2019re aware of it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
So next time you are plotting revenge against someone who has wronged you, know that the anticipation of revenge may feel good in the moment, but don\u2019t expect these hidden \u201cupsides\u201d to last for long. Rather, understand that this feeling is there for a very good reason, and it could well have protected many of your ancient ancestors from being taken advantage of.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Notes:<\/p>\n
1. < http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1017\/S0140525X11002160 ><\/p>\n
2. < http:\/\/www.nccpsafety.org\/resources\/library\/the-final-report-and-findings-of-the-safe-school-initiative-implications-fo\/ ><\/p>\n
3. < https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/wonk\/wp\/2016\/11\/09\/how-trump-won-the-revenge-of-working-class-whites\/?utm_term=.9c8b604bb4bd ><\/p>\n
4. < https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-real-reason-trump-won-white-fright-67899 ><\/p>\n
5. < http:\/\/www.jsad.com\/doi\/abs\/10.15288\/jsas.1993.s11.128 ><\/p>\n
6. < http:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/journals\/psp\/70\/5\/945\/ ><\/p>\n
7. < http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1177\/0146167202239051 ><\/p>\n
8. < http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1093\/scan\/nst038 ><\/p>\n
9. < http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1093\/scan\/nsv082 ><\/p>\n
10. < https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/27808535 ><\/p>\n
11. < https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/jan\/09\/christie-bridge-scandal-outrageous-political-revenge ><\/p>\n
12. < http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/v439\/n7075\/full\/nature04271.html ><\/p>\n
13. < http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S002210310700100X ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Revenge serves a very useful purpose \u2013 even the idea of seeking it gives us pleasure. Why is this? ________ A tale of revenge is always bittersweet. Take the sack of Troy, as depicted in Homer\u2019s epic poem The Iliad. When Paris steals away Helen, her husband King Menelaus cannot bear the injustice and seeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5432,5433,357,3339,944,483,481,1235],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}