Revenge really is sweet: study shows the mood-enhancing effect of retaliation

By Alex Fradera When we feel ostracised, we’re more likely to behave aggressively. Previous research suggests that vengeance on those who we think have wronged us can be driven by a sense of justice, and may activate neural reward centres. But being ostracised can also lead to generalised aggression, even lashing out at unrelated people, so there seems to be more going on. In new research in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, David Chester and C. Nathan DeWall tested the idea that social rejection, by making us feel wounded and unwanted, triggers a need to repair our mood by whatever means available, including through the satisfaction of causing harm to those who have made us suffer. They found that aggression can indeed be a viable method of mood repair. The researchers asked 156 participants to write an essay on a personal topic, then to swap their essays with other participants to receive feedback on what they’d written. One group of participants received nasty feedback (actually composed by the researchers): “one of the worst essays I have EVER read”. Chester and DeWall measured mood before and after participants were given the chance to express a symbolic form of aggression: sticking pins in a virtual voodoo doll imagined as the person who had given them mean feedback. This act of (un)sympathetic magic did indeed repair mood for the rejected participants, to the point where their mood was indistinguishable from participants who’d received nice feedb...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Anger Emotion Morality Social Source Type: blogs