Sweet, sweet revenge?

With all this badass posturing and reignited patriotism in the last week, I had to wonder if there was a reason behind all of it. As in everything else in life, I should qualify that I mean a biological reason. Something scientific to back up the screaming frat boys outside the White House getting drunk off the assassination of an evil man. Sure, we can all celebrate that there is one less mass-murderer in the world. Is it simply a feeling of camaraderie with our fellow citizens that we don't often get to feel anymore? Because, let's face it, not many of us actually contributed to the downfall and eventual destruction of this pathetic guy thousands of miles away. 

As it turns out, revenge is not just a cultural phenomenon and has a defined basis in our brain chemistry. In a recent interview with Scientific American, Dr. Michael McCullough describes how revenge stimulates the same pleasure sensors in the brain that light up when we crave things like desserts or drugs. Even thinking about perpetrating an act of revenge activates our dopamine levels and the left prefrontal cortex which is involved with goal-planning. That goal is to commit an act that deters the individual who has harmed us (mentally or physically) from imposing more harm in the future. The desire to prove that you won't tolerate this mistreatment also jumps up if other people were witness to the initial injury because there is more at stake in social cost-benefit terms. Therefore, the "goal" is to produce "reformed behavior" (McCullough).

So did revenge motivate our reactions after hearing the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a US military raid? It's hard to say. Once the act involves more than an individual (in this case, an entire nation), the clarity of biological motivations is blurred. In the same vein as altruism -- where an individual commits an act that benefits the larger group-- we still don't entirely understand the reaction where group dynamic is involved. The goal may have been to deter other terrorists from continuing their quest to destroy western culture.  Or it may have been to prove that we won't tolerate the tragedy and destruction of 9/11 because it was witnessed by the rest of the world. However, in reality, it doesn't seem likely that we can expect reformed behavior from this ilk. The media has constantly described the likeliness of retribution by al-Quaeda or other terrorist groups around the world and these same groups have expressed their interest in doing so. Instead, a skewed sense of justice was at stake and the desire to bring closure to an event that occurred almost ten years ago. 

While it may have felt like revenge and some may have even felt pleasure that mimicked what they believed was revenge, I'm not convinced there was a biological basis for the reaction. Most of us were not personally affected by 9/11 or by bin Laden's death. However, we felt like we were because it affected our country as a whole. I think revenge is therefore closely related to altruism in that the goal is ultimately to help or protect those that you care about. I can't say whether bin Laden's death actually did either of these things (helping or protecting Americans), but people who experienced satisfaction from the event at least think that they did. The difference is that altruism seems to stem from a higher place while revenge speaks to our basest instincts.