By Will Knight
NewScientist.com news service
A lust for vengeance may be hardwired into the male brain. Scans of brain activity suggest that men experience greater satisfaction than women in seeing cheaters get their comeuppance – at least when the punishment is physical.
Tania Singer of University College London, UK, and colleagues used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine to analyse the brain activity of 32 volunteers after their participation in a simple game, called the Prisoner's Dilemma.
The game allows players to cooperate or double-cross one another, and so fosters camaraderie or enmity between players. Following the game, participants were placed inside an fMRI machine and then saw their fellow players zapped with electricity. The activity in their brain was recorded as they watched.
The scans revealed changes in activity as players who had cooperated got zapped, compared with those who had double-crossed them in the game. The results suggest that men get a much bigger kick than women from seeing revenge physically exacted on someone perceived to have wronged them.
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