Others' Pain May Be Pleasurable for Bullies -- ABCnews
There may be some truth to the notion that bullies make other people feel bad to make themselves feel better. A new study published in the journal Biological Psychology used fMRI scans to compare brain activity in eight unusually aggressive 16- to 18-year-old males to those of eight normal adolescent males while they watched videos of people getting hurt. While both groups showed activity in the brain's pain centers, the brains of aggressive males, those with conduct disorder, also showed activity in the brain's pleasure centers, suggesting that they may have been enjoying what they were seeing. Normal males showed no such activity. "It just dumbfounded us," said Dr. Benjamin Lahey, co-author of the study and professor of epidemiology and psychiatry at the University of Chicago.
There may be some truth to the notion that bullies make other people feel bad to make themselves feel better. A new study published in the journal Biological Psychology used fMRI scans to compare brain activity in eight unusually aggressive 16- to 18-year-old males to those of eight normal adolescent males while they watched videos of people getting hurt. While both groups showed activity in the brain's pain centers, the brains of aggressive males, those with conduct disorder, also showed activity in the brain's pleasure centers, suggesting that they may have been enjoying what they were seeing. Normal males showed no such activity. "It just dumbfounded us," said Dr. Benjamin Lahey, co-author of the study and professor of epidemiology and psychiatry at the University of Chicago.
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