According to a study reported in Nature males really get a charge out of seeing bad guys, or enemies, get what’s coming to them. It seems that watching people who had acted badly get hit with electrical shocks stimulated the pleasure centers of the brain in males and the areas associated with empathy in females.
Well that explains a lot doesn’t it? The Germans (who else?) have a word for this, it’s shadenfreud which means “taking pleasure in the suffering of others.”
No wonder it’s so hard for guys to let bygones be bygones. Getting revenge is on the same pleasure scale as sex. I do have one problem with the study though, I’ll bet if the folks getting zapped were ex-hubbys or ex-boyfriends, the ladies would experience even more shadenfreud than the guys.
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