They test her?
Posted on 01/19/2006 2:19:55 PM PST by neverdem
Men appear to get greater satisfaction than women from witnessing painful retribution, according to a brain scanner study published today.
This evidence of male schadenfreude, or pleasure at seeing revenge enacted, suggests men may have evolved to be less empathetic than women so they can more easily mete out punishments to help keep society cohesive, speculate the team at University College London.
In the team's study, published today in the journal Nature, 32 volunteers watched actors who had previously cheated them get electric shocks as the UCL researchers monitored what was happening in their brains.
Dr Tania Singer, who led the study, said: "During breaks in the tests you could tell from the body language that both the male and female volunteers did not like the actors who had cheated them. They tried to stay away from them as much as possible."
In women, the same pain regions of their brains were activated when they saw one of the actors get a shock as when they got a shock themselves; it was as if they actually felt the other person's pain.
But in men, these pain areas were not activated and instead, the pleasure centres of their brains lit up, meaning that they got pleasure, or at least satisfaction, from seeing the other person get a shock. "They expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment," said Dr Singer.
However, men were not wholly unsympathetic. If the person receiving the shock had not previously cheated them, men behaved like women and showed empathetic activity in the pain areas of their brains.
Nor were women indiscriminately sympathetic. The empathy-related activity in their brains was higher for people who had not cheated them.
"These results suggest that fairness in social situations shapes the nature of the emotional link we have to other people," explained Dr Singer. "We empathise with others if they act fairly. But in contrast, selfish and unfair behaviour compromises this empathetic link."
Rather than feeling empathy for people who cheat us, we desire revenge and generally feel satisfaction when cheats are punished. "This has probably been crucial in the evolution of society as the majority of people in a group are motivated to punish those who cheat on the rest.
"This means that people tend to protect each other from being exploited by society's free-loaders, and evolution has probably seeded this sense of justice and moral duty into our brains," said Dr Singer.
The results could indicate a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment in human society, but Dr Singer said that more research was needed to back up this finding before any conclusions were reached.
"We will need to confirm these gender differences in larger studies because it is possible that the experimental design favoured men as there was a physical rather than psychological or financial threat involved."
The above is the title that the NY Times gave to their version of this story.
They don't know my ex.
That's because men are wired for vengeance.
Men may want revenge more but women hold on to grudges far far far far far far far....did I say far?......longer, and then they get their revenge. And it comes out of the blue with no reference to anything remotely current....
Behavior the liberals have been doing their very best to condition/indoctrinate out of the populace for decades!
Not the best of titles ... can be taken different ways.
Interesting article.
¡Sí, tengo muy hombre!
Nah, it just means most of 'em never grow up! :)
They test her?
The subjects were probably overwhelmingly Christian and Jew. A rerun should be done using Moslems.
Great minds think alike.
I can vouch for that. And she's got it coming.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1561188/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1560953/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1560850/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1560504/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1560404/posts
Assorted posts on the same topic. Not that there is anything wrong with than that. Mostly not identical.
I wonder if they even bothered to go outside the university to recruit subjects? Lot of starry-eyed young female idealists there.
No doubt the "researchers" used "intuition" to render patterns of light into wordy intentions.
And on another day, members the same "team" cheer at films like "Thelma and Louise."
I just finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha... sheesh, the women in that book spent YEARS plotting revenge for petty slights!
Sounds to me like emotions have been left untouched by evolution.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
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