Revenge, brain study finds, is a male partiality

Started by Laboratory Mike, Jan 18, 2006, 08:56 PM

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Laboratory Mike

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/18/news/revenge.php?rss

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In his epic poem "Don Juan," Byron wrote: "Sweet is revenge - especially to women." But a new scientific study using magnetic resonance imaging of the brain suggests that men may be the more natural avengers.

In the study, published online Wednesday by Nature, subjects witnessed people whom they perceived as wrongdoers getting zapped by a mild electrical shock. When male subjects saw this, their MRI scans lit up in primitive brain areas associated with reward; the brain's empathy centers remained dull.

Women subjects watching the punishment, in contrast, showed no response in centers associated with pleasure. Even though they also said they did not like the wrongdoers, their empathy centers quietly glowed when the shocks were administered.

At some level the study proves for the first time in physical terms what many people assume they already know: That women are generally more empathetic than men and that men are more prone to schadenfreude - malicious joy when faced with another's misfortune.

Men "expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment," said Dr. Tania Singer, the lead researcher, of the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London.

But far from condemning the male impulse for retribution, Singer said it had an important social function. "This type of behavior has probably been crucial in the evolution of society," she said, "as the majority of people in a group are motivated to punish those who cheat on the rest."

The Nature study is part of a growing body of research that is attempting to reach a better understanding of behavior and emotions by observing simultaneous physiological changes in the brain, a feat now attainable through various types of brain imaging.

"Imaging is still in its early days, but we are transitioning from a descriptive to a more mechanistic type of study," said Dr. Klaas Stephan, a co-author of the Nature paper.

In the past year, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have used scanners to observe brain patterns during deception. A group at the University of Pennsylvania has studied brain scans of subjects experiencing pure disgust (as when seeing a dead bird) and indignation (disgust caused by moral revulsion, as when seeing starving children). The goal is to determine whether they are linked emotions or distinct ones created by different brain structures.

In the new Nature study, research subjects filled out traditional questionnaires about how they felt when watching revenge being exacted, as well as submitting to scans. "We observed the same things at the behavioral and imaging level, so we now have a biological representation of that behavior," Stephan said.

Singer's team, which had previously identified the brain's empathy center using MRI, was trying to see whether the degree of empathy correlated with how much a person liked or disliked the person being punished. The team had not set out to look into sex differences.

To cultivate personal likes and dislikes in their 32 volunteers, they asked them to play an elaborate money strategy game, where both members of a pair would profit if both behaved cooperatively. The ranks of volunteers were secretly infiltrated by actors instructed to play selfishly.

Subjects were given a sum of money and told they could either keep it or give it to their partner, who was in each case an actor. The partner could in turn keep the money, or send it back - in which case the sum returned would automatically triple.

If the partner cooperated and sent back the money, both team members would benefit greatly. If not, only the partner would benefit and the research subject would be left penniless.

Volunteers came quickly to "very much like" the partners who were cooperative, while disliking those who hoarded rewards, Stephan said.

Cultivating emotions through such role-playing is an accepted and effective part of many classic psychology experiments.

Having been conditioned to like or dislike their various gameplaying partners, the 32 subjects in the Nature study were placed in a scanner and asked to watch the different partners receive electrical shocks.

On scans, both men and women subjects seemed to feel the pain of partners they liked, a correlate of the empathy response.

But the real surprise came during scans when the subjects viewed the partners they detested being shocked. "When women saw the shock, they still had an empathetic response, even though it was reduced," Stephan said. "The men had none at all."

To further explore the male brain, the researchers used their scanners to look at pleasure centers that control reward processing. Those areas lit up in males when punishment deemed to be just was meted out.

The researchers cautioned that it was not clear whether men and women were born with divergent responses to revenge hardwired into their brains or whether these differences were created by social experiences.

Singer said larger studies were needed to learn whether differing responses would be seen in other situations involving revenge that did not involve physical pain.

Still, she added: "This investigation would seem to indicate there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment."

Sir Percy

I don't know whether to laugh or sigh. So these 'scientists' use an MRI, sort of gross fuzzy snap of glucose flow in the brain, and from that decide that they are looking at a 'revenge' area. What if they had called it  a 'Justice' area? Would they be saying that women have no inherent sense of justice? Nah. Of course not. How about calling this crap science.
vil, like misery, is Protean, and never greater than when committed in the name of 'right'. To commit evil when they are convinced they are doing 'good', is one of the greatest of pleasures known to a feminist.

CaptDMO

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Singer said larger studies were needed to learn whether differing responses would be seen in other situations involving revenge that did not involve physical pain.


Yep, right, got it, I guess this means-THE OBVIOUS!  *sheesh*

Men's Rights Activist

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"Revenge, brain study finds, is a male partiality"


I just heard Craig Ferguson comment on this on his late show.   This may be paraphrased a little but it's close.
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"I'm not so sure about this - I've been divorced twice.  I could find you some women - like a pig sniffing out truffles."

Craig, buddy, I think I know what you're saying. "Hell hath no fury like a woman who even thinks she's scorned."  That well worn statement probably didn't just pop out of a vacuum.
Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness are fundamental rights for all (including males), & not contingent on gender feminist approval or denial. Consider my "Independence" from all tyrannical gender feminist ideology "Declared" - Here & Now!

whome112

Some things are so insane that only an expert would believe them.

whome
ay what you mean: Mean what you say.
http://jwwells.blogspot.com

The Biscuit Queen

Here is the HUGE flaw in their methodology.

Men tend to veiw justice logically. It does not matter why someone did something, or who they were, the law applies equally. Men don't use empathy, they use their intellect. It makes them feel good to have things right.

Women tend not to care about those sorts of technicalities. However, if you involve her emotionally, look out.

Now look at what they picked as the bait-money. Women do not get furious at the loss of money. Men do, since their entire social standing is banking on it, their ability to support themselves, their ability to find a mate and have children. So of course the men will react far more than the women.

They should have had the women flirting with the guys. Then show another good looking woman or man stepping in when they are gone and trying to take over. Then you would see the women's empathy centers stop "quietly glowing" and their revenge centers expoloding. The men would likely have scored much calmer, since competition if totally fair, and they would not take it so personally.

*diclaimer, all this has "in general' for each assertation*

How can these people so load the dice then call it a study?
he Biscuit Queen
www.thebiscuitqueen.blogspot.com

There are always two extremes....the truth lies in the middle.

Sir Percy

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How can these people so load the dice then call it a study?


A clue......

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...Dr. Tania Singer, the lead researcher....
vil, like misery, is Protean, and never greater than when committed in the name of 'right'. To commit evil when they are convinced they are doing 'good', is one of the greatest of pleasures known to a feminist.

CaptDMO

Quote from: "Sir Percy"

A clue......
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...Dr. Tania Singer, the lead researcher....


Two more-
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of the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London


It's hard to remember but-
Wellcome is(was) a pharmacutical interest associated with(now?) Glaxo.
Who KNOWS the name of this interest now?
Glaxo/Wellcome was assimilated.
At one point it was Glaxo/SmithCline-Beechham/(something else, I lost track)
Several lawsuits have prompted the consolidation and renaming of several
pharma "interests"

I wonder when the proposed "treatment drug" for this malady will be announced, and what company name it will be patented under?

Call me jaded. Anything beginning with "new research shows" and "University"(or the like)makes me think of the old maternity wards in Vienna.

Laboratory Mike

Quote from: "Sir Percy"
I don't know whether to laugh or sigh. So these 'scientists' use an MRI, sort of gross fuzzy snap of glucose flow in the brain, and from that decide that they are looking at a 'revenge' area. What if they had called it  a 'Justice' area? Would they be saying that women have no inherent sense of justice? Nah. Of course not. How about calling this crap science.


I think the "fuzzy snap of glucose flow" is actually for Positron Emission Tomography. An MRI tends to give much better pictures of the brain itself, but PEM gives a better concept of where the most brain activity is taking place. Odds are they were taking pictures with the MRI, and somehow decided, "oh, it must be this node."

And for those making far-flung references about "women can get money from men so it wouldn't be as big a deal for them." I think that's a stretch in logic. Personally, I think that researcher's bias and an incomplete set of experiments would be to blame, if there are flaws. I see this research as possibly true, but with a lot of unanswered questions. Questions that probably won't be asked, given that the study already has the headlines that the researchers were no doubt aiming for.

dr e

Reminds me of "scientists" looking at a weather map and making proclamations about the colors of butterflies.
Contact dr e  Lifeboats for the ladies and children, icy waters for the men.  Women have rights and men have responsibilties.

Men's Rights Activist

One thing that really, really bothers me about the report on this study is that they do not divulge the sex of the cheater.  If the cheaters are all men that could explain the reactions.  What would the sexes reactions be if the cheaters were all female???  This report and perhaps this study is schlock, IMHO.
Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness are fundamental rights for all (including males), & not contingent on gender feminist approval or denial. Consider my "Independence" from all tyrannical gender feminist ideology "Declared" - Here & Now!

The Gonzman

I'd like to see a study done where women viewed people getting electric shocks who they think cheated THEM.

I bet we'd find little difference between those wave outputs and those of an orgasm.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am the MEANEST son-of-a-bitch in the valley.

neonsamurai

I was lucky enough to hear Dr Tania Singer on BBC Radio 2, speaking to DJ Stuart Marconi about this study and I think that what has happened is open to a great deal of speculation. I'd heard she was going to be on the show and after reading what the press had to say, I wanted to listen to exactly what she'd 'discovered'. It wasn't what I'd expected.

For a start she came across as a scientist and not as someone with an agenda, especially as she actually took the opposite stance to that of the DJ. Plus she pretty much dismissed everything that had already been said as the research hadn't been completed.

Sir Percy said:
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What if they had called it a 'Justice' area? Would they be saying that women have no inherent sense of justice? Nah. Of course not. How about calling this crap science.


Well actually Sir Percy I think you might have been pleasantly surprised. Although she didn't actually say that 'women have no sense of justice' she did say that so far it appeared that men weren't swayed by who had cheated and this possibly could be a sign of an inherent sense of justice. If fact throughout the interview she didn't really say a bad word about either sex, and believe me I was waiting for her too do just that.

I think that what's happened is they've done some research on brain mapping, University College London have told the press some of their findings in order to get publicity or sponsorship and then made some of the scientists reluctantly talk about what little information they have gleaned.

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At some level the study proves for the first time in physical terms what many people assume they already know: That women are generally more empathetic than men and that men are more prone to schadenfreude - malicious joy when faced with another's misfortune.


And this is exactly how a piece of unfinished research can be said to 'prove'.

I wouldn't blame the scientists in this case, just the press for using their expansive scientific knowledge (read: zero) to sell a few newspapers. People here have already pointed out that the study has more holes in it than Swiss cheese, but as far as I can tell this isn't a 'study of revenge', it's about mapping electrical impulses in the brain.
Dr. Kathleen Dixon, the Director of Women's Studies: "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!"

Sir Percy

Neon, thank you. I am pleasantly surprised and am happy to take back my skepticism about the lady. I, too, heard an interview with Dr Tania Singer on my steed radio, perhaps the same one. It was a science program. ABC here. And she did not repeat the sense of the article, so I too assume its a newsprint beat-up. That was just a day or two ago. If she read this topic, I apologise and I should have corrected myself earlier. I will clean my steed's bum as penance. There's justice for you!  :oops:

But thank you for bringing in that balance.
vil, like misery, is Protean, and never greater than when committed in the name of 'right'. To commit evil when they are convinced they are doing 'good', is one of the greatest of pleasures known to a feminist.

neonsamurai

Quote from: "Sir Percy"
Neon, thank you. I am pleasantly surprised and am happy to take back my skepticism about the lady. I, too, heard an interview with Dr Tania Singer on my steed radio, perhaps the same one. It was a science program. ABC here. And she did not repeat the sense of the article, so I too assume its a newsprint beat-up.


I listened to her expecting to be outraged too, but came away very skeptical... of the press reports! As my science teacher Mr Goodwin used to say; "Science doesn't lie, only people lie!"
Dr. Kathleen Dixon, the Director of Women's Studies: "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!"

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