Chapter 17
Revenge
People Affected: everyone older than 24 months
Type of Emotion: conceptual coercion
Conceptual Trigger: “ X harmed me by breaking the rules ”
Mental Effect: negative
Conceptual Stop: “ I harmed X as much as X harmed me ”
Key Feature: the more harm caused, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in men
Voluntary Expression: anger
Synonym: hatred
Type of Emotion: conceptual coercion
Conceptual Trigger: “ X harmed me by breaking the rules ”
Mental Effect: negative
Conceptual Stop: “ I harmed X as much as X harmed me ”
Key Feature: the more harm caused, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in men
Voluntary Expression: anger
Synonym: hatred
Purpose
Revenge encourages victims of rule breaking to always retaliate, whether it helps them or not.
Rules include laws, by-laws, contracts, morals, protocol and etiquette.
Rules are a cultural adaptation that improve group efficiency. Rules force individuals to do what is best for a group when doing so is not what is best for the individual. Traffic flows more efficiently because we obey the rule that you stop at red lights.
Improving group efficiency helps group survival. The more efficiently a nation’s traffic flows, the less it costs to feed its citizens.
Always retaliating deters rule breaking. People are less likely to break rules because they know that revenge is universal. Queues work because potential queue-jumpers expect retaliation from those waiting in the queue.
Always retaliating harms victims. Retaliating can help a victim, but always retaliating does not. Retaliating only helps a victim if it prevents future harm to that victim. If you are mugged by a neighbor, reporting it to the police helps you. You will reduce your risk of being mugged again. If you are mugged in a foreign city, reporting it to the police does not help you. You will not reduce your risk of being mugged again.
Always retaliating also harms a victim’s genes. Reporting a mugging in a foreign city does not provide an offsetting benefit to your reproduction. However, reporting the mugging does help the survival and reproduction of the people who live in that city. Their risk of crime is reduced without any effort on their part.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold” refers to minimizing the harm that retaliating causes to a victim. If you retaliate when you are cool-headed, you can retaliate without breaking the rules and therefore avoid punishment and counter-retaliation.
Conceptual Trigger
Revenge is triggered when you are harmed by rule breaking.
Harm is anything which reduces happiness. Revenge is triggered by rule breaking that harms you physically, financially or emotionally. You feel revenge if somebody’s rule breaking causes you to feel negative emotions, like grief or humiliation. You also feel revenge if somebody’s rule breaking prevents you from feeling positive emotions, like affection or pride.
Revenge requires rule breaking. You feel revenge if another driver collides with your car because they were speeding. You do not feel revenge if another driver collides with your car because they swerved to avoid a child.
Revenge requires harm to you. Witnesses to rule breaking do not feel revenge. If revenge was triggered in victims and witnesses, there would be too much retaliation.
Mental Effect
Revenge encourages victims of rule breaking to always retaliate, whether it helps them or not.
Rules include laws, by-laws, contracts, morals, protocol and etiquette.
Rules are a cultural adaptation that improve group efficiency. Rules force individuals to do what is best for a group when doing so is not what is best for the individual. Traffic flows more efficiently because we obey the rule that you stop at red lights.
Improving group efficiency helps group survival. The more efficiently a nation’s traffic flows, the less it costs to feed its citizens.
Always retaliating deters rule breaking. People are less likely to break rules because they know that revenge is universal. Queues work because potential queue-jumpers expect retaliation from those waiting in the queue.
Always retaliating harms victims. Retaliating can help a victim, but always retaliating does not. Retaliating only helps a victim if it prevents future harm to that victim. If you are mugged by a neighbor, reporting it to the police helps you. You will reduce your risk of being mugged again. If you are mugged in a foreign city, reporting it to the police does not help you. You will not reduce your risk of being mugged again.
Always retaliating also harms a victim’s genes. Reporting a mugging in a foreign city does not provide an offsetting benefit to your reproduction. However, reporting the mugging does help the survival and reproduction of the people who live in that city. Their risk of crime is reduced without any effort on their part.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold” refers to minimizing the harm that retaliating causes to a victim. If you retaliate when you are cool-headed, you can retaliate without breaking the rules and therefore avoid punishment and counter-retaliation.
Conceptual Trigger
Revenge is triggered when you are harmed by rule breaking.
Harm is anything which reduces happiness. Revenge is triggered by rule breaking that harms you physically, financially or emotionally. You feel revenge if somebody’s rule breaking causes you to feel negative emotions, like grief or humiliation. You also feel revenge if somebody’s rule breaking prevents you from feeling positive emotions, like affection or pride.
Revenge requires rule breaking. You feel revenge if another driver collides with your car because they were speeding. You do not feel revenge if another driver collides with your car because they swerved to avoid a child.
Revenge requires harm to you. Witnesses to rule breaking do not feel revenge. If revenge was triggered in victims and witnesses, there would be too much retaliation.
Mental Effect
Revenge varies with the harm caused. The more harm caused to a victim, the stronger the negative effect. You will feel revenge if a mugger forces you to give up your wallet. You will feel stronger revenge if the mugger also breaks your nose.
The strength of revenge determines the likelihood of retaliation. You are more likely to report a violent mugger to the police than a non-violent mugger.
While the strength of revenge determines the likelihood of retaliation, the wording of its conceptual stop determines how much you retaliate.
Revenge is generally stronger in men. Given the same harm caused, men feel a stronger negative effect than women. Men fight more because they feel stronger revenge.
Revenge is stronger in men because male retaliation harms a group less. Because they are physically larger, men can punish rule breakers more easily than women. Men can punish both men and women. Women can only punish women.
Conceptual Stop
Stopping revenge requires equal harm or eye-for-an-eye punishment. The families of murder victims complain when murderers receive less than life imprisonment.
Stopping revenge requires victim participation. Numerous victims of a serial rapist will testify against the rapist, despite one being sufficient for a conviction. The victims know that they will not stop feeling revenge unless they participate in the conviction. Requiring victim participation ensures that equal harm is achieved when multiple victims are involved.
Apologies, anger and violence stop revenge.
Receiving an apology stops revenge without causing physical harm. If somebody apologizes to you, they have admitted to being a rule breaker. They have lowered their rank, which triggers their humiliation. Seeing an apologist feel humiliation is equal harm for minor rule breaking, like being late for a meeting.
Expressing anger also stops revenge without causing physical harm. If you express anger, you are threatening to harm someone. If your threat is credible, you will trigger their fear. Triggering someone’s fear is equal harm for moderate rule breaking, like rude driving.
Being violent stops revenge by causing physical harm. Victims resort to violence when expressing anger fails to frighten a rule breaker. Road rage often escalates to violence when a victim of rude driving expresses anger at a rude driver and the rude driver responds by laughing. The laughing triggers the victim’s humiliation, further adding to their revenge.
Revenge accumulates if not stopped. The negative effect of revenge does not fade away if it is not stopped. It accumulates and re-emerges later, usually in a disproportionate response to minor rule breaking. Men often respond disproportionately to minor rule breaking by family members after accumulating revenge all day at work.
Forgiveness is living with unstopped revenge. If you forgive someone, you are stating that you will not retaliate to stop your revenge. Instead, you will live with the negative effect, hoping that it will fade away with time. It is easy to forgive rule breaking that is ambiguous and causes minor harm, such as minor property damage caused by carelessness. It is more difficult to forgive rule breaking that is unambiguous and causes major harm, such as violence that causes injury.
Forgiveness does not stop revenge. Unstopped revenge does not fade away, regardless of the ambiguity of the rule breaking or the harm caused. If you think you were harmed by rule breaking, you will feel revenge until you retaliate. If you forgive someone, you will stop your revenge by subconsciously retaliating against the rule breaker or by harming a different person. Children retaliate against cruel parents by spending less time with them in old age. Wives with cruel husbands harm their children.
Other Species
Tamarin monkeys feel revenge. Experimenters trained one monkey to always cheat when playing a game with other monkeys. Victims of the cheater “would go nuts” when they saw the cheater enter the adjoining test chamber. Victims “would throw their feces at the wall, walk into the corner and sit on their hands”. The victim reaction was reported by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt in Monkey Business (The New York Times). The experiments, led by Marc Hauser and Keith Chen, are summarized in Give Unto Others: Genetically Unrelated Cotton-Top Tamarin Monkeys Preferentially Give Food to Those Who Altruistically Give Food Back (Proceedings of The Royal Society).
The strength of revenge determines the likelihood of retaliation. You are more likely to report a violent mugger to the police than a non-violent mugger.
While the strength of revenge determines the likelihood of retaliation, the wording of its conceptual stop determines how much you retaliate.
Revenge is generally stronger in men. Given the same harm caused, men feel a stronger negative effect than women. Men fight more because they feel stronger revenge.
Revenge is stronger in men because male retaliation harms a group less. Because they are physically larger, men can punish rule breakers more easily than women. Men can punish both men and women. Women can only punish women.
Conceptual Stop
Stopping revenge requires equal harm or eye-for-an-eye punishment. The families of murder victims complain when murderers receive less than life imprisonment.
Stopping revenge requires victim participation. Numerous victims of a serial rapist will testify against the rapist, despite one being sufficient for a conviction. The victims know that they will not stop feeling revenge unless they participate in the conviction. Requiring victim participation ensures that equal harm is achieved when multiple victims are involved.
Apologies, anger and violence stop revenge.
Receiving an apology stops revenge without causing physical harm. If somebody apologizes to you, they have admitted to being a rule breaker. They have lowered their rank, which triggers their humiliation. Seeing an apologist feel humiliation is equal harm for minor rule breaking, like being late for a meeting.
Expressing anger also stops revenge without causing physical harm. If you express anger, you are threatening to harm someone. If your threat is credible, you will trigger their fear. Triggering someone’s fear is equal harm for moderate rule breaking, like rude driving.
Being violent stops revenge by causing physical harm. Victims resort to violence when expressing anger fails to frighten a rule breaker. Road rage often escalates to violence when a victim of rude driving expresses anger at a rude driver and the rude driver responds by laughing. The laughing triggers the victim’s humiliation, further adding to their revenge.
Revenge accumulates if not stopped. The negative effect of revenge does not fade away if it is not stopped. It accumulates and re-emerges later, usually in a disproportionate response to minor rule breaking. Men often respond disproportionately to minor rule breaking by family members after accumulating revenge all day at work.
Forgiveness is living with unstopped revenge. If you forgive someone, you are stating that you will not retaliate to stop your revenge. Instead, you will live with the negative effect, hoping that it will fade away with time. It is easy to forgive rule breaking that is ambiguous and causes minor harm, such as minor property damage caused by carelessness. It is more difficult to forgive rule breaking that is unambiguous and causes major harm, such as violence that causes injury.
Forgiveness does not stop revenge. Unstopped revenge does not fade away, regardless of the ambiguity of the rule breaking or the harm caused. If you think you were harmed by rule breaking, you will feel revenge until you retaliate. If you forgive someone, you will stop your revenge by subconsciously retaliating against the rule breaker or by harming a different person. Children retaliate against cruel parents by spending less time with them in old age. Wives with cruel husbands harm their children.
Other Species
Tamarin monkeys feel revenge. Experimenters trained one monkey to always cheat when playing a game with other monkeys. Victims of the cheater “would go nuts” when they saw the cheater enter the adjoining test chamber. Victims “would throw their feces at the wall, walk into the corner and sit on their hands”. The victim reaction was reported by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt in Monkey Business (The New York Times). The experiments, led by Marc Hauser and Keith Chen, are summarized in Give Unto Others: Genetically Unrelated Cotton-Top Tamarin Monkeys Preferentially Give Food to Those Who Altruistically Give Food Back (Proceedings of The Royal Society).
Happiness Dissected is a more practical version of The Origin of Emotions.