Revenge: An Analysis of Its Psychological Underpinnings (original) (raw)
Related papers
Exploring the dynamics of revenge
2008
Although its consequences can be devastating, revenge is surprisingly understudied. In this dissertation, I address several key questions. For example, are the factors that trigger revenge the same across different individuals? What are the psychological processes that facilitate revenge? Does revenge have any adaptive value? These issues were addressed with a series of three studies. Study 1 explored whether personality predictors of self-reported revenge generalize across four specific transgressions. Results indicated that narcissists were only vengeful after social rejection whereas psychopaths and neurotics tended to be vengeful across transgressions. Study 2 expanded on these results by exploring trait-level vengeful fantasies and vengeful behaviors and the impact of a potential mediator, namely, anger rumination. Neuroticism was shown to be predictive of vengeful fantasies: This association was entirely mediated by anger rumination. Psychopathy predicted vengeful behavior: This association was partially mediated by vengeful fantasies. Study 3 involved the analysis of participants" personal anecdotes about how they reacted to transgressions against them. Coded variables included revenge as well as 10 other coping behaviors: These 11 predictors were then evaluated with respect to their impact on both immediate relief and long-term recovery. Although the revenge option fostered immediate relief, it did not benefit long-term recovery. Only one coping behavior (meaning-making) actually fostered recovery. The contributions and limitations of this research plus suggestions for future studies are discussed. vi
The Moral Psychology of Revenge
Journal of Human Values, 2005
The tendency and ability to take adequate revenge for an insult or injury inflicted in the past have been often glorified as part of a ‘just and honourable’ individual or communal character. This article argues against this old—and currently popular—belief that the act of revenge is justified and reasonable. The central flaw in the idea of revenge is that it is a futile attempt to remedy past suffering. The article shows how revenge cannot be defended as ‘teaching the aggressor a lesson’ or as ‘getting even with the aggressor’ or as ‘retributive punishment’, and why at the heart of the retaliator’s motivation structure there is a tragic self-frustrating contradiction. It also explains how and why revenge spirals escalate rather than bring closure to the violence and injury. The alternative suggested by the article is not ‘forgive and forget’, but ‘remember and resist’. In conclusion, a few powerful defences of revenge are discussed as objections to this generally anti-vengeance mora...
2014
Anger and aggression have only recently gained center stage in research on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). An investigation of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms focusing on the outcome of unresolved anger (i.e., revenge), however, is absent from the literature. The objective of the present research was therefore to provide a first step towards filling this gap and, hence, to systematically examine the associations between OC symptoms and different aspects of revenge (i.e., attitudes, dispositions, motivations). In three independent studies with nonclinical participants (N¼ 504), we tested the hypothesis that OC symptoms relate to greater revenge. Individuals high in OC symptoms reported more positive attitudes toward revenge (Study 1), scored higher on a measure of trait revenge (Study 2), and reported increased revenge motivation regarding a real-life transgressor (Study 3). Furthermore, Study 4 (N ¼175) demonstrated that individuals high in OC symptoms perceived interpersonal transgressions more frequently in their daily lives. OC symptoms were positively related to the number of transgressions that respondents disclosed. Our results suggest that revenge and interpersonal hurt play a significant role in OCD.
The Influences of Personality, Vengeance, and Severity on Behaviours Provoking Revenge
The differences in vengeful behaviour for individuals in varying positions in The Dark Triad were assessed utilising an online questionnaire methodology. Ninety-six participants (45 males, 51 females) completed the Revenge and Personality Study which incorporated The Vengeance Scale (Stuckless & Goranson, 1992) and The Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), and questions relating to a description of a self-reported vengeful situation. The Dark Triad was found to not be a significant predictor of vengeful behaviour. Further analysis was completed in relation to the severity of the vengeful situation, and it was found that event severity was not a significant contributor to vengeful behaviour. A number of themes were found in the data, these included bullying, family incidents, and relationship incidents. The situations that caused individuals to want the most revenge were workplace incidents and relationship incidents. It is concluded that the Vengeance Scale is an effective measure of vengeful behaviour, but further analysis is required in order to find the reasons why individuals act vengefully in certain situations.
Exploring the Facets of Revenge
Revenge is a complex notion with many facets and not an easy subject to discuss. However, investigating and understanding this challenging topic may prove to be an important endeavor. This book contains the proceedings from a conference on revenge, covering themes that vary from revenge in history and society, to philosophies of revenge, to revenge in literature and many subjects in between. Each one of the authors contributes ideas to the study of revenge, its meaning and its motivations. The papers on the philosophy cover thoughts from Bacon, Nietzsche and Bataille on the concepts of revenge. The papers on the history of revenge showcase prominent wars and legal systems that formed ideas of revenge on a national level. The papers on revenge in society examine how revenge creates social norms, and therefore, influences peoples' behaviour. Finally, the papers on revenge in literature discuss how prominent authors write about revenge, partially as a reflection of their times, and partially as a reaction against their times. Though this study is by no means complete, it forms a solid foundation upon which more research into the topic of revenge may rest.
Revenge: A Multilevel Review and Synthesis
Annual Review of Psychology, 2019
Why do people take revenge? This question can be difficult to answer. Vengeance seems interpersonally destructive and antithetical to many of the most basic human instincts. However, an emerging body of social scientific research has begun to illustrate a logic to revenge, demonstrating why revenge evolved in humans and when and how people take revenge. We review this evidence and suggest that future studies on revenge would benefit from a multilevel perspective in which individual acts of revenge exist within higher-level cultural systems, with the potential to instigate change in these systems over time. With this framework, we can better understand the interplay between revenge's psychological properties and its role in cultural evolution.
Revenge is universal in human cultures, and is essentially personal and retributive. Its moral status is contested, as is its rationality. Revenge is traditionally associated with pleasure, but this association is not accounted for in contemporary philosophical treatments of revenge. Here I supply a theory of normal narcissistic functioning that can explain this association. Normal narcissism is an adaptive form of inter-psychic processing which has to do with the regulation of a coherent set of meta-representations of the agent. It can be given a general account by integrating views drawn from clinical traditions, empirical psychology, and contemporary cognitive neuroscience. I explore the neural correlates of normal narcissism, its characteristic accompanying emotions and pleasures/displeasures, and its fundamental dynamics. It is proposed that this allostatic regulatory system plays a prominent role in retributive behavior, including revenge. Revenge is understood as a form of narcissistic repair, and a variety of puzzles concerning revenge (e.g., delay, urgency, pleasure) are solved from this point of view.
Revenge and psychological adjustment after homicidal loss
Feelings of revenge are a common human response to being hurt by others. Among crime victims of severe sexual or physical violence, significant correlations have been reported between revenge and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Homicide is one of the most severe forms of interpersonal violence. It is therefore likely that individuals bereaved by homicide experience high levels of revenge, which may hamper efforts to cope with traumatic loss. The relationship between revenge and psychological adjustment following homicidal loss has not yet been empirically examined. In the current cross-sectional study, we used selfreport data from 331 spouses, family members and friends of homicide victims to examine the relationships between dispositional revenge and situational revenge on the one hand and symptom-levels of PTSD and complicated grief, as well as indices of positive functioning, on the other hand. Furthermore, the association between revenge and socio-demographic and offense-related factors was examined. Participants were recruited from a governmental support organization, a website with information for homicidally bereaved individuals, and members of support groups. Levels of both dispositional and situational revenge were positively associated with symptoms of PTSD and complicated grief, and negatively with positive functioning. Participants reported significantly less situational revenge in cases where the perpetrator was a direct family member than cases where the perpetrator was an indirect family member, friend, or someone unknown. Homicidally bereaved individuals reported more situational revenge, but not more dispositional revenge than a sample of students who had experienced relatively mild interpersonal transgressions. Aggr. Behav. 40:504-511, 2014.
Current Psychology, 2012
Vengeance can be commonly defined as the disposition towards the infliction of harm in return for perceived injury or insult or as simply getting back at another person. This paper describes a contribution to the Italian validation of the Vengeance Scale (Stuckless and Goranson, Journal of social Behavior and Personality 7: [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] 1992) following the same steps of the original authors and shows psychological implications of vindictive behavior. 377 under-graduate students responded to the Big Five Questionnaire, State Trait Anger Expression Inventory and a back-translated Italian version of the Vengeance Scale (IVS). The IVS shows good psychometric properties. Convergent validity is shown by correlations with crucially connected variables (anger, empathy, social desirability). Factorial analysis suggested that the IVS is basically a one-dimensional measure. Regression analysis reveals that empathy, anger and emotional stability are significant predictors of vengeance. General results show that the IVS is a good instrument of evaluation of the tendency to be vindictive. Statistic analysis highlights that specific personality traits are involved in vindictive behavior; furthermore the interactions between some features of subject and the environment appear determinant. The implications and utility of the IVS in future research are discussed.
Revenge in Couple Relationships and Their Relation to the Dark Triad
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021
Background: This research examines how, when a romantic partner commits a perceived transgression that leads to couple break up, vengeful reactions are predicted by the type of transgression and the Dark Triad of personality. Methods: An incidental sample of 2142 participants, half male and half female aged 18 to 70, completed a questionnaire developed by the authors to assess how they had reacted after being the perceived victims of a transgression committed by their partner and a measure of the Dark Triad. Results: Results show half of the people who feel as though they are victims of a partner transgression show revenge reactions. These reactions are more emotional than rational and do not usually anticipate their consequences or success. Moreover, revenge is related primarily to psychopathy and to a lesser extent to Machiavellianism. Psychopathy is the best predictor for revenge thoughts and actions, whereas narcissism does not predict revenge when controlling for other dark tra...