Why punishing feels good

<body leftmargin="0" bgcolor="#000060" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FFFF00" vlink="#FF9900"> <b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="4">Why revenge feels good</font></b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="1">Posted August 30, 2004<br> Science</font><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#FFFFFF"><b><br> <br> A Swiss brain imaging study now suggests that we get satisfaction from teaching people a lesson when they have behaved badly. These findings may at least partly explain why we reprimand people who have abused our trust or broken other social rules -- even if doing so doesn't offer us any direct, practical benefits. </b></font> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#FFFFFF"><b>Dominique de Quervain of the University of Zurich and colleagues scanned the brain activity of male volunteers participating in a game of exchanging money back and forth. If one player made a selfish choice instead of a mutually beneficial one, the other could penalize him. The majority of the players chose to impose the penalty even when it cost some of their own money. </b></font> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#FFFFFF"><b>The researchers determined that deciding to impose this penalty activated a brain region, the dorsal striatum, involved in experiencing enjoyment or satisfaction. </b></font> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#FFFFFF"><b>The findings are published in today's issue of the research journal <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/" target="_top">Science</a>. In a related commentary, Stanford University's Brian Knutson notes that future research will need to explore how this phenomenon may vary by gender and social group. </b></font> </p> </body>