Schadenfreude Revisited

A recent study found that men derive more pleasure from other people's misfortune. A quote from the article:

The scientists scanned the brains of 16 men and 16 women after the volunteers played a game with what they thought were other volunteers, but who in fact were actors. The actors either played the game fairly or obviously cheated.

During the brain scans, each volunteer watched as the hands of a "fair" player and a cheater received a mild electrical shock. When it came to the fair-player, both men's and women's brains showed activation in pain-related areas, indicating that they empathized with that player's pain.

But for the cheater, while the women's brains still showed a response, men's brains showed virtually no specific reaction. Also, in another brain area associated with feelings of reward, men's brains showed a greater average response to the cheater's shock than to the fair player's shock, while women's brains did not.

A questionnaire revealed that the men expressed a stronger desire than women did for revenge against the cheater. The more a man said he wanted revenge, the higher his jump in the brain's reward area when the cheater got a shock. No such correlation showed up in women.

Personally, I'm not satisfied with the methods here. I think we need to conduct our own experiment. Someone go get Matt. Someone else get me the Spanish Inquisition soft cushions, comfy chair, and the Iron Maiden. I'll go fetch some of the female members of Matt's former lab. I'll bet anything that I can show a nice response in the female reward center once I start in with my torture techniques.

Ooooohhh - I smell my first NIH grant coming.