The neuroscience of revenge says that there are people who, far from turn the page after disappointment, rejection or what they have interpreted as an injustice, feed that hatred, even planning a way to generate discontent.
Thus, far from controlling anger, rationalizing feelings or making proper use of some regulatory mechanism, they allow this discomfort to become chronic.
- Talking about revenge.
- As we well know.
- Can often be complicated.
- What is more.
- It is difficult not to go into the ethical.
- Moral and even legal aspects.
- There are acts that obviously require some kind of response.
- But in these cases.
- The courts.
- You must apply justice.
- Never personal violence.
However, in this article what we are interested in is to deepen the neurological and psychological aspect of the neuroscience of revenge.
Let’s look at an example. Anyone who likes to follow the criminal literature will surely remember the name of Ted Bundy, one of the worst serial killers in history and, to date, the number of victims he committed is unknown.
After a series of interviews, psychological and neurological tests, it was discovered that more than a personality marked by psychopathy: Bundy has killed a large number of young people for a desire for revenge maintained for years.
The origin of this – and therefore a fact that triggered your actions – was the abandonment suffered in the context of a romantic relationship, that rejection fueled in him an unreasonable, if not almost savage, anger led him to seek victims of the same physical characteristics as the woman who had abandoned him.
Revenge, as seen in this example, can act on some people in the form of a clearly aggressive and brutal mechanism, today neuroscientists have already discovered the mechanisms and areas of the brain that regulate such impulses.
It’s an interesting and revealing subject. Let’s look at more data below.
“Goodbye kindness, humanity, and gratitude? Goodbye, all the feelings that ennoble the soul. Have I taken the place of providence to reward good?Now give me your god of vengeance to punish the wicked?. ?The Count of Monte Cristo, Taking Away Dumas” ?
Shouldn’t we get even? Shakespeare has already said it in one of his plays. Everyone, at some point in their lives, has experienced this same feeling.
After suffering an affront or being the victim of a bad deed on the part of someone, it is almost inevitable that you do not want to do the same harm to the other person, feeling that way and even experiencing this desire is something neurologically and emotionally normal. Fact.
However, most of us rationalize the situation and, after a period of reflection and emotional management, we end up simply turning the page, the latter process, the one that regulates and erases the desire for revenge, is mediated by our cerebral cortex.
It is at this time, more precisely in the dorsolateral prefrontal zone, that the areas responsible for treating our self-control are located.
Right now, what about people who have a personality marked by an vengeful tendency?
The University of Geneva conducted interesting research in early 2018. The neuroscience of revenge now has very solid evidence demonstrating several aspects, some very impressive.
Dr. Olga Klimecki-Lenz, a researcher at the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences (CISA), has located the area where our impulses of revenge are concentrated, so to speak.
These latest data open up the interesting possibility of reducing violent and vengeful acts through magnetic stimulation; However, aggressive behaviors, such as those that characterized serial killer Ted Bundy, depend on many factors that are not always explained by neurobiological factors.
From a cultural and even psychological point of view, revenge is a very interesting process.
That is why we have masterful and already consecrated works such as El Conde de Montecristo, in which Alejandro Dumas shows us that revenge is a dish that eats cold and that can take years to plan and execute.
However, we cannot ignore another essential aspect. People who regularly engage in this type of behavior point to a fact that scientists like Kevin M. Carlsmith, Timothy D. Wilson, and Daniel T. Gilbert have already demonstrated: lack of empathy.
Moreover, if one wonders why there are profiles characterized by this almost constant need to make others pay for what is considered an injustice, psychology says that there is almost always the same pattern: they are narcissistic, insecure, with low emotional regulation. , No ability to forgive and without empathy.
In conclusion, it is worth thinking for a moment of a very simple idea, we all feel the desire for revenge at some point, however, the decision to be calm and careful is what makes us human, which makes us noble.
“Weak people take revenge. The strong man forgives. Smart people don’t know? Albert Einstein?