Recently a very interesting scientific study appeared – about how men and women differ in the degree of pleasure they get from revenge. But what was really startling about the published paper was the conclusion pronounced by the study’s lead scientist.
First let me tell you about the study. Scientists monitored the brain activity of thirty two male and female volunteers as they watched someone who had behaved badly to them apparently suffering pain. I say “apparently” because the sufferers were played by four actors. In the experiment, the actors played a financial investment game with the subjects, sometimes playing fair and other times cheating.
Later the subjects watched as the actors – “apparently” again – received mild electric shocks. When the “fair” players got the shock, both men and women brains showed increased activity in the pain-related centers of the brain – in other words, they empathized with the victims. BUT when the actor who had misbehaved in the game got the electrical punishment, the women showed the same neurological empathy while the men showed absolutely none.
Aha, I thought, at last clear evidence that women are more sensitive to suffering and more willing to see the good as well as the bad in a human being. While to my mind, this is cause for optimism about how women, given the chance, deal with power, the lead scientist – a woman no less! – came to a very different conclusion. “This investigation,” wrote Dr.Tania Singer of University College, London, “would seem to indicate that there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment.”
As if understanding justice requires an appreciation of cruelty.
I am much more persuaded by the speculation of another neuroscientist – a man, by the way – Dr. Colin Wilson, who said “It might be that women tend to have more reflective, thoughtful responses and are less likely to make quick, punitive judgments.”
The astute Dr. Wilson also proposes a follow up to the experiment. “What would be really interesting,” he muses, “would be if the same findings were found if the punishment was a social insult or a putdown, rather than physical.”