He always seemed to be pleased with the results of his efforts, and so did the on-lookers. Teaching in an urban inter-city school warps you a bit, but this study seems to be on the money in terms of results. It explains video games, TV, movies, some sports, and crowd be havior ... kids running to a fight to watch. FD.
TOP DOG BEHAVIOR?
Bullies really do take pleasure in other people's pain.
A new study of brain activity shows that aggressive males may enjoy watching others suffer.
Professors at the University of Chicago analyzed the reactions of a group of teenagers with, and without, a history of violent behavior while they watched video clips of strangers enduring pain.
They found that while both groups showed a surge in activity in the brain's pain centers, the aggressive youths also showed an uptick in activity in the pleasure centers - suggesting they might actually be enjoying what they were seeing.
"They're not only indifferent to the pain, they love it - maybe," said Dr. Benjamin Lahey, co-author of the study and professor of epidemiology and psychiatry at the University of Chicago.
"They're responding to others being hurt, but in a way that's self-reinforcing."
The study, published in the journal Biological Psychology, studied the reactions in 16 male youths aged 16 to 18.
Eight had "conduct disorder," a mental disorder characterized by aggressive, destructive or harmful behavior toward others, and had started fights, used weapons or stolen from a victim after a confrontation.
The authors used specialized MRI scans to monitor brain activity and said they expected to find the aggressive youths exhibit an emotionally indifferent response to witnessing pain in others, not an increase in activity.
Instead the unusually aggressive young men had a strong "pleasure" response to the videos clips of people experiencing pain both accidentally and intentionally.
"It just dumbfounded us," Lahey said.
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