Why do people take revenge

When someone hurts or betrays you, you might feel the urge to cause them distress in return, but take it from us — that is never a good idea.

If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? You might be thinking that it will also provide great relief from the pain that you are feeling or some sort of satisfaction. Sadly, evidence shows that people who seek revenge instead of forgiving or letting go, tend to feel worse in the long run.

You are much better off channelling your energy into moving forward positively with your life. I hate to break it to you, but if you consider yourself to be a decent human being, causing someone else distress or pain whether you think they are deserving of it or not might not put the smile on your face you were hoping for.

In fact, it might make you feel worse; you might feel guilty, upset, regretful — and these kinds of feelings tend to linger and weigh heavy on your conscience. While you might feel hurt or betrayed right now , eventually you will be able to put those feelings behind you, but if you burden your conscience with guilt, you are more likely to ruminate over your actions — this makes moving on much harder and only puts your life on hold.

What can really be gained? It is far better to save yourself from the possibility of further trauma. Focus on the good things in your life and look at how you can move forward, putting the person who hurt you firmly in the past. Not to sound cliche but life is short! Think of all the fun things you could be doing instead of acting like Mr.

Burns and plotting, planning and focusing your energy on the negative. Whether you believe in it or not, karma makes a much better friend than a foe — make sure to keep on the right side of it:. So do the right thing, be the bigger person — you will be glad you did so in the long run. So, you seek revenge on the person who hurt you.

They then take revenge on your revenge…and the cycle continues. Try and leave negativity and people who bring you down in the past. They are not worth your time and energy. Lastly, to understand the role of emotion in the desire to seek revenge, Chester and DeWall gave participants what they believed was a mood-inhibiting drug it was in fact only a harmless vitamin tablet.

Still, the placebo effect was so strong that the participants who took the "drug" didn't bother to retaliate against the people who rejected them — whereas those that were not given the placebo acted far more aggressively.

The placebo group, it seems, did not seek revenge because they believed they would feel no pleasure from doing so. Taking these results together the team came to a startling conclusion. Not only can revenge give people pleasure, but people seek it precisely because of the anticipation it will do so.

And it worked. After having the opportunity to get revenge, the rejected individuals scored the same on mood tests as those who had not been rejected.

This finding, however, does need to be taken with a necessary pinch of salt. There are currently no long-term follow up studies on how revenge feels days or weeks after the act.

Preliminary — as yet unpublished results — show that revenge-seekers only get a momentary feeling of pleasure, Chester found. That begins a cycle and it starts to look like an addiction… then afterwards you feel worse than when you started," he explains. And that might help explain why those who seek the high of revenge fail to anticipate disastrous personal consequences.

The footballer Zinedine Zidane, for instance, will forever be remembered for head-butting Marco Matterazzi in the World Cup. Along a similar vein, Richard Nixon is well-known for his list of foes, the goal being to "screw his political enemies".

Some of his dirty tricks later led to his forced resignation. Unfortunately, revenge gives people pleasure Credit: Getty Images. The question then becomes, why has this seemingly destructive behaviour persisted in our evolution if it can cause us so much trouble? The answer is that far from an evolutionary mistake, revenge serves a very useful purpose. Michael McCullough puts it this way: although people might say seeking revenge "is really bad for you" — that it might ruin your relationships, for example — the fact that it exists at all is a very good thing.

Its main goal is to work as deterrent, which in turn has clear advantages for our survival. Consider prison or gang culture, where if you meddle with the wrong person, revenge attacks are a sure consequence. In Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar-winning performance in The Revenant, so powerful is his desire for revenge that it keeps him alive. With broken bones and open wounds, he drags himself through a hostile and dangerous terrain to avenge his son's killer.

Even the threat of revenge might deter an attack, says McCullough. Only then can the avenger move on "because that goal has been fulfilled", in a similar way that we only stop feeling hungry after we have satiated our appetite.

So if a main purpose of revenge is about deterring harm, it is a very good thing indeed. That is not to say, says McCullough, that we should encourage people to indulge in seeking revenge. It might also be comforting to know that not everyone acts out on their desire to seek revenge.

One study found that men get more pleasure from the idea of revenge. Male participants were found to have more activity in the reward circuit of the brain than women when they saw cheating opponents receive an electric shock.

In another study , Ozlem Ayduk of the University of California, Berkeley and colleagues, found that those with specific personality types were more likely to act violently after rejection. I did not feel any thing sexual overtly in childhood. Could feeling good after revenge have to do with what you expect to feel, what you have been taught you should feel. Suppose it could just depend on so many things. I have met shy people who turned out to be as they were because they come from a family who want dignified meadults as ofspring, what in childrens stories are lord mayor types, who dont talk or behave in a friendly sort of way or act in an amusing interesting one, their whole act being to show how seriousness they are, their families idea of seriousness being the aspect of it not the serious thoughts serious people have.

They had always heard any extrovert behavior or minimally emotional behavior criticised and ridiculized by a parent or both, what child wants to be ridiculous?

Their behavior is determined by their parents not their own tendencies to a greater degree than I had ever imagined as a youth.

I tried terribly hard to cure shyness that turned out to be aloofness. Interesting article and responses. I exacted revenge on a man at work who sexually harassed me and put me through psychological trauma for far too long.

I had asked him not to do what he was doing, but he did it again and again and was getting quite brazen because he knew I was weak. However, he miscalculated a little in choosing his victim. I snapped one day. Soon after I found out from an ex-employee that he had done something similar to her several years prior, and had received a warning and was forced to give her a formal apology.

This enraged me. One night, I woke up at 4am and suddenly remembered something I heard about him many years before. Some of his friends once whispered about his qualifications being fake.

Had no idea whether or not it was true, but reported it high up, and suddenly he was gooooooooooone. Guess they checked, but they never confirmed or denied it. Wish I had thought of it earlier! I am in a much better and safer workplace now. The only thing I feel guilty about is my deep sense of satisfaction many months after the fact. I seem to be almost gloating inwardly anyway about it.

Look what I did! I feel that it must be wrong to feel so good about revenge almost a year after the fact. I suppose I feel like I needed justice. I just wanted to make him pay. I have felt the need for revenge on many occasions, but always resisted knowing I would probably cool off after a few months, which is usually the case. I wonder if there is a psychological difference between two types of desiring revenge.

Firstly, their is the obsession with revenge intent on maximizing harm to another individual, which some have mentioned seems to be poisonous and tends to ignore the boundaries of law and negative effects on self — a revenge totally focused on inflicting harm.

Secondly, there is the more rational kind of revenge that seems concerned with self-preservation and community preservation — a revenge more concerned with a better future. I wonder if the later is the kind that some find satisfying whereas the former tends to be less satisfying. Try it! It is our moral duty to retaliate against unjust systems or people who violate the very principle of social justice only to serve their own interests. Let us revenge now,and leave the next world to God.

Based on my own personal experience, revenge is exceedingly and abundantly gratifying. McCullough, Life is not that simple sir. As a physician people can gang up on you. With 5 degrees. I come into this Urgent care after 8 m thats how long it took. But that is not the reason my first da. By the trainer I confronted as going to fast.

Whom when I confronted said she felt I was criticizing her, I never got to evaluate her.. Then when I met with the director one week later for orientation did she tell me? No, but she was rude and I thought what is going on here. I just got hired. The writing was on the wall. The borderline disordered obese female who felt critizied decided to pull a great one.

That day in training there were 3 other people one was an expert, one said it did not apply to him and another psych nurse was acting weird and left and did not show up the next day accept to take a test. That left 3. Now this woman said I was so disruptive that people requested another day of training.

All I ever did was raise my hand ask her to slow down, share an experience and shut my mouth. I was raised Catholic. I thought I was going to die. Right there Little did I know behind the scenes was the negative comments from the Epic trainer.. So I go home and and Email my director. Come to find out. The wrong thing to do. But Revenge right. Letting her know that her words have power.

That they convey a meaning, that it may be taken in a group setting as perhaps well let me give you an example I would like to introduce you to our to our new provider: cheryl and ben versus Ben and of course…. So after my emails. She emailed me back for a meeting and who was there? HR and her and I was drilled and of course why then she said if I was your doctor well then HR said well it could be taken either way. Well, then the director said she went to everyone in that meeting and asked them what they thought so apparently she felt she had to be right huh?

Then that just places me in even a worse position with people. So after that what chance do I have. Then I am set up to work with the very people that were in that meeting a few days later. That weekend I have to work with her but believe me my experience of her prior to that was not a good one. First, 1. She was rude and abrupt, she did not even know I was suppose to orient with her.

She was down right mean. She has a stance which is upright chest thrust forward and and unyielding attitude. This was the worst experience in my life worse than my breast cancer and chemo. I would rather go thru that again than what I went thru here and I really mean it. These people were the worst I have dealt with ever in any system anywhere ever, never, ever have I ever experienced this atrocity.

You have nothing to fear from me but what you should fear is the medical entity that does not supervise the young. I am of the ones that cannot fight nor want to. I forgive.