We've looked at the brain's reward systems for years, some links below.
From Medical Xpress, June 16:
by Virginia Commonwealth University
Us versus them: Harming the 'outgroup' is linked to elevated activity in the brain's reward circuitry
Humans tend to form groups, which often find themselves in conflict with rival groups. But why do people show such a ready tendency to harm people in opposing groups?
A new study led by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University has used functional brain imaging technology to reveal a potential answer: It increases activity in the brain's reward network.
"At a time of deepening political divisions and global conflict, it is crucial for us to understand why people divide each other up into 'us' and 'them' and then show a profound willingness to harm 'them,'" said corresponding author David Chester, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Humanities and Sciences. "Our findings advance this understanding by suggesting that harming outgroup members is a relatively rewarding experience."
The researchers had 35 male college students complete a competitive, aggressive task against either a student from their university or from what they were told was a rival university. In reality, participants unknowingly played against a computer program, and no real people were harmed.
They found that participants who were more aggressive against outgroup members (students from a rival university) versus ingroup members (students from their own university) exhibited greater activity in core regions of the brain's reward circuit—the nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex—while they decided how aggressive to be.
Both before and after outgroup exclusion, aggression toward outgroup members was positively associated with activity in the ventral striatum during decisions about how aggressive to be toward their outgroup opponent. Aggression toward outgroup members was also linked to greater post-exclusion activity in the rostral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex during provocation from their outgroup opponent. These altered patterns of brain activity suggest that frontostriatal mechanisms may play a significant role in motivating aggression toward outgroup members....
....MUCH MORE
As a part of a fascination with the wider field of neurotransmitters we've posted on dopamine cascades and our little buddies the D3 and D4 receptors:
Trading the Nucleus Accumbens: Using MRI Scans to Top-tick a Bubble
Want to Make Big Money? Engineer A Little Addiction Into Your Product
"New research suggests link between genetics, Wall Street success"
Now that's obsessive.
Usually it's the little old lady bookkeeper embezzling from her employer of thirty years to cover her slot habit.
Understandable, in a dopaminergic sort of way.
She's triggering her reward pathways and going a little nuts from the neurotransmitters bathing her brain but she's not trying to rob the casino to keep playing the slot machine.
This guy, on the other hand is a) participating in a slower game, which in theory should trigger the dopamine cascades less frequently and b) he's ripping off Martha Stewart!?
Berlusconi Blames Stock Market Volatility On Cocaine (and a look at neurotransmitters)
Marketers Want to—Literally—Get Inside Your Head
The nucleus accumbens is a critical component of the brain's
reward/pleasure circuitry; modulated by our old pals dopamine and
serotonin.
See, if interested, the very accessible:
Reward Deficiency Syndrome
(14 page PDF)
We've posted on Dopamine Labs a few times
and should note they finally realized the name was a little, as they
say in Hollywood, "too on the nose" and have rebranded as Boundless
Mind.
Same great taste, same neurotransmitter-based behavioral manipulation, but now with extra AI and pseudo-Zen.
See also "Pleasure Dissociative Orgasmic Disorder"
And for many of our links on social sadism and the sadocratic impulse:
"The woke world is a world of snitches, informants, rats...."
The character trait that really stands out about the denizens of Wokistan is the cruelty. Cruelty for cruelty's sake. Cruelty just to be cruel. Yuck.
It's pathological and like other pathologies the stench it gives off, like other stenches humans find revolting, is a warning from nature: "Something bad is going on here, something toxic, stay away.".....
Speaking of random acts of cruelty (and the WaPo, immediately below):
Why Did the Washington Post Get This Woman Fired?https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/why-did-the-washington-post-get-this-woman-fired.html
"We blew up this woman's life for no reason." In 2018, Schafer attended a Halloween party at the home of Tom Toles, the Post 's Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist. The basis for ...
