[Lee Yongbeom's Psychology of Happiness] The Law of Pleasure in Revenge

Most interesting stories revolve around revenge. Whether in myths or dramas, the main motifs often include revenge against those who stole a lover, retaliation for the unexpected death of friends or family, retribution to restore tarnished honor, and punishment for betrayal of love and loyalty.

Sometimes, personal revenge escalates into wars between groups or classes. Revenge is as old as human history itself.

The Paradox of Revenge

Harboring resentment does not guarantee success in revenge. The punishment of villains is something that happens only in movies or comics. In reality, villains are rarely punished, and their futures do not necessarily end in misfortune. In fact, villains often live happier lives than good people.

The illusion that villains meet unhappy ends is a fiction created by those who failed to exact revenge as a form of self-comfort.

No matter how unjust the situation, society does not permit personal revenge. Nowadays, the state steps in to exact revenge on behalf of individuals. In fact, even if private revenge succeeds, it brings no benefit because the state will charge you with assault.

Revenge is deadly because it begets more revenge. Movies end their stories when the villain dies or disappears. However, villains also have families and supporters. The moment I finish my revenge, they will dream of avenging me. Therefore, revenge is a risky strategy in a survival game where lives are at stake. A vicious cycle repeats where those who succeed in revenge are continuously pursued by others seeking revenge.

Paradoxically, the vicious cycle of retaliation can break the chain of mutual revenge. The avenger must consider the many candidates who might one day turn a knife on them. If that is frightening, they have no choice but to give up revenge. Fear of revenge breaks the vicious cycle of revenge.

Revenge is not a human flaw. Without it, survival in a harsh world would have been difficult. Imagine a world with people who endure unfair treatment patiently and those who always retaliate. The retaliators would likely have a much better chance of survival. If you gain a reputation as someone who pays back in kind, no one will treat you carelessly. Such a person can deter attacks from villains merely by threatening revenge. Therefore, revenge is not a losing proposition. Punishing evil means carrying out revenge.

However, those who lacked the courage or strength to take revenge were likely easy targets for exploitation and had difficulty leaving descendants. Revenge has contributed to protecting oneself and family, defending one’s rights, and maintaining social order. Revenge prevents the moral balance sheet, which favors villains, from tipping completely to one side.

Revenge is Pleasure

In any society, revenge is perceived as good. A society where unfair acts cannot be avenged is not a just society. A society that cannot punish villains is a wicked society.

A just society has the state fairly exact revenge on behalf of individuals. What individuals must prepare for revenge is not a knife but a complaint letter. However, no government can be perfectly fair. It cannot fully restore what I lost. That is why people still burn with revenge.

Why do people carry out revenge despite the disadvantages they may suffer? Surprisingly, it is because revenge brings pleasure. According to psychologists, people experience pleasure when they take revenge in games.

The game works like this. Participants donate money, and the organizer doubles the donation and returns it. However, if even one person does not contribute, no money is returned. The best outcome is when all participants donate and receive double. But as the game continues, the amount donated gradually decreases because people try to contribute less while watching each other.

Psychologists introduced a punishment system for those who donate less to prevent this. Then participants retaliated against those who contributed less, even at their own expense. In 2004, a Swiss research team concluded that the brain areas responsible for pleasure activate when people take revenge.

People feel pain when ignored. But in 2016, a research team led by social psychologist David Chester at the University of Kentucky in the U.S. found that merely imagining revenge against those who excluded oneself brings pleasure. When ignored, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula, brain areas related to pain, activate, but imagining revenge activates the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s pleasure center.

The researchers made a surprising discovery in follow-up studies. When participants were given a placebo said to suppress pleasure, their desire for revenge suddenly disappeared. This means revenge is carried out solely to gain pleasure. We experience pleasure just by imagining revenge. That is why we carry out revenge. Revenge is an emotion that disappears only after revenge is taken.

The Altruistic Punisher

Fortunately, not everyone carries out revenge. According to research results so far, people feel pleasure when they decide to take revenge, imagine it, execute it, and when revenge is achieved. Among them, men experience greater pleasure than women.

We seek pleasure through revenge, but the pleasure does not last long. After Osama bin Laden, who led the 9/11 attacks, was killed, American psychologists conducted an experiment. Participants felt pleasure upon hearing the news of bin Laden’s death, but their mood turned negative over time. The pleasure of revenge is momentary. That is why many revenge dramas end in tragedy. After revenge ends, the audience feels pleasure, but the person involved is left with emptiness.

American evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough summarized the roles of revenge in three ways. First, it prevents future harm. Second, it deters potential offenders from attacking. Third, it encourages members who do not cooperate to contribute to the common good by punishing them.

In a world rampant with revenge, trust does not sprout, and cooperation does not occur. If the principle of "an eye for an eye" is strictly followed, only the visually impaired would remain in the world. That is why today we use legitimate systems like elections instead of violence.

We take revenge on those in power through elections held every few years. Politics is a proxy war between groups with differing interests. Voting-based revenge can be seen as a bloody revenge drama staged by those excluded from power. Voting revenge clearly leads society in a better direction.

Fortunately, we are beings who derive pleasure from punishing selfishness. The mystery of humans is that we are equally angry at those who do not punish bad people. We punish not only those who commit evil acts but also those who overlook them. This was the key to enabling cooperation among selfish humans.

For large-scale cooperation to be possible, selfish individuals who do not cooperate must be punishable. Punishment of selfish individuals is called "Altruistic punishment." As mentioned earlier, we feel joy from punishing selfishness. This not only gives a sense of relief to those belonging to the punishing group but is also beneficial in the long term. Without altruistic punishment, cooperation within groups would not have emerged.

Punishing selfish individuals is revenge for the benefits they gained while causing losses to the community. People derive psychological pleasure from punishing antisocial actors. This instinct has deep biological roots. Revenge has been evolutionarily selected for the benefit of the community.

Thus, humans are conditional cooperators, altruistic punishers, and avengers at the same time.