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Brain experiences pleasure when dealing out justice

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RickU

Brain experiences pleasure when dealing out justice

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www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5820379/Article follows...By Kathleen WrenScienceUpdated: 4:01 p.m. ET Aug. 26, 2004Just after you let a car cut in front of you, its brakes and forces you to wait until it makes a left turn. Chances are, your hand quickly finds its way to the horn. advertisement We often feel the urge to teach cheaters and other rule-breakers a lesson even when we don't seem to benefit from doing so. A Swiss study now suggests a possible motivation: penalizing rule-breakers activates a part of the brain involved in experiencing pleasure. Although our "tit for tat" behavior may seem childish in some cases, it also appears to be a basic human quality that allowed our ancestors to form cooperative societies, according to Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich and his colleagues. Their study appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.Is fairness in our self-interest?Economists have long assumed that human behavior is essentially rational, meaning we don't do something unless we somehow benefit from it. In fact, self-interest seems to motivate most behavior in the animal kingdom.Of course, animals can behave in ways that appear purely altruistic, such as parents caring for their young. Some researchers have argued, though, that these acts are self-interested from an evolutionary point of view, since they improve the chances that the family's genes get passed down.Although the "me
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Re: Brain experiences pleasure when dealing out justice

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Rick:Great article!I read half...I will finish at a later date. Gotta get some work done.Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of PainHEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P
CSflim

Re: Brain experiences pleasure when dealing out justice

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I don't doubt it.Without the concept of "justice", society could never have developed. Without "punishment" it would always be the beneficial strategy to take advantage of everyone around you.Similarly, we can expect that the opposite is true; that the brain experiences pleasure when it does something charitable or altrusitic to someone that is judged to deserve it. ___________________Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?-Douglas Adams, Last Chance To See
Tiarella

Re: Brain experiences pleasure when dealing out justice

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Quote:Further experiments indicated that inflicting the punishment didn't cause the players to feel satisfaction. Instead, as they decided to impose the penalty, the players were anticipating feeling satisfied.Then how could Fehr conclude:Quote:You can look at our experiment as saying that people seem to feel rewarded when they punish a defector.The satisfaction came at the moment of anticipation, not at the moment of administering punishment. Yes? Are you reading this differently?If I had time for it, I'd try to get a copy of Science so I could read the original article, instead of this mishmash they've released for the general public. Methinks they're calling a molehill a mountain.Your suggestions for further experiments are interesting, CSflim!edit: typo, & clearer language Edited by: Tiarella at: 9/2/04 3:24 pm
Doc Tiessen

pleasure when punishing

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It seems that we experience pleasure when punish other people... This is a very interesting article... and it could explain many things... I wonder...Did Bush experience pleasure when invading Afganistan and destroying Irak?Is this high dose of pleasure the reason that the American people are going to vote for him again?How would I love if somebody could stick an electrode to the brain of Bush and measure his pleasure by getting democratically reelected... Diversity is Good!
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