Men's Brains Wired to 'Enjoy' Revenge More Than Women

Since when did America's frat boys become so interested in politics?

Over at the Wired science blog, Jonathan Lehrer examines the reaction to Osama bin Laden's killing, which brought out a disproportionate number of young men out into the streets of Washington D.C., New York and other American cities.

On one level these young guys were simply joining the rest of the nation in cheering a stunning military victory for the United States, in an age with few such victories since 9/11. The Millennial generation of young men - and women - were in grade school and junior high school at the time of the 9/11. They lived with Osama bin Laden as a bogeyman and American enemy #1 since their childhoods. For Millennials, the news of bin Laden's death provided catharsis.

But the guys were more animated in their celebration than the women. Media coverage of the rallies looked like Super Bowl or World Series celebrations, with young men chanting, climbing light poles and waving flags.

Lehrer cites research indicating a tendency in men's brains to produce pleasure when wrongdoers experience pain or comeuppance.

According to Lehrer,

The most striking finding, however, was limited to the minds of men. According to the data, when men (but not women) watched a defector get punished, they showed additional activation in reward related areas of the brain, such as the ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens. These are essential elements of the dopamine reward pathway, that same highway of nerves that also gets titillated by sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Apparently, we are engineered to get pleasure from punishing those who deserve to be punished.