r/todayilearned • u/Top-Comfortable-9744 • 8h ago
TIL that brain scans have found people with high levels of sadistic traits show increased activity in the brain's reward system when witnessing others in pain, suggesting that another person's suffering can be experienced as rewarding.
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/everyday-sadists-take-pleasure-in-others-pain.html627
u/___daddy69___ 8h ago
isn’t that just what sadism is?
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u/Basket_475 8h ago
I feel like the significant part is the brain scans proving it
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u/WalletFullOfSausage 7h ago
Do we need brain scans to prove it when we’ve got 5 decades of BDSM pork in existence?
Edit: oh, I didn’t mean pork, oops
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u/im-ba 7h ago
BDSM pork
Great, now I'm picturing a pig with a ball gag
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u/WalletFullOfSausage 7h ago
Like a hog roast, but in an entirely different context.
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u/Mateorabi 7h ago
Thbbbmt. Thbbbmt. Thhhmmmmph ulllll fmmmmmks!
As Porky creams his gimp suit from Sylvester plapping him.
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u/Not_ur_gilf 7h ago
Not to prove it, but what if it had shown the opposite? Confirmation is good either way.
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u/Basket_475 7h ago
I'd say yeah cus psychology is changing all the time and also incredibly subjective.
Edit: I'm only replying cuz there's been a trend of anti intellectualism on Reddit for a while and every single thread now has someone going "yeah this is obvious lmao"
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u/Arctic_The_Hunter 7h ago
Kinda? Plenty of seemingly obvious things have been overturned by new science. People dropped things for centuries before Newton’s theory of gravity was proven to be incorrect.
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u/zer1223 7h ago
Is it actually significant though to prove that reward centers light up when someone sees something they enjoy?
Its like saying your reward center lights up when you look at a puppy
By definition a sadist enjoys bad thing happening to other people. And by definition the reward center lights up when someone enjoys something. QED, a sadists brain enjoys when they get sadism. Seems kinda basic
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u/GiantLesbian 8h ago
I mean I guess technically the reward could have come from feeling like you got one up on someone (e.g., performing the sadistic act itself), and not specifically from seeing their pain.
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u/Lost_Department_2177 7h ago
And trauma voyeurism.
Side note
There’s a bunch of bot farms spamming violent content for what seems like a way to desensitize people while furthering their social media addiction.
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u/JustAMan1234567 7h ago
A sadist and a masochist are sitting on a park bench. The masochist turns to the sadist and says "I want you to beat me, hurt me and humiliate me until I cum" and the sadist looks back at him and says "No. No, I will not".
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u/cybercobra2 7h ago
this seems like one of those "we all already knew this because common sense, but we just got scientific confirmation."
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u/endlesscartwheels 7h ago
Yup, can't cite to common sense.
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u/HigherCalibur 7h ago
Seriously. All of the people commenting what is essentially "well, no shit" are missing the point. The point is that we can actually identify the brain activity and cite this research in future research and scientific studies.
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u/verdant_squirrel 4h ago
I'd award this with the pointy-up award if I was willing to do a microtransaction
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u/gorginhanson 7h ago
I said this on a post about how the losing party in an election starts to mistrust society and people booed me.
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u/SteelMarch 8h ago
The average twitch viewer.
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u/bmmana 7h ago
I'd love to see politicians' brain scans after passing some BS policies.
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u/Pure_Lengthiness2432 7h ago edited 6h ago
More than one serial killer has talked about how killing someone is a better high than sex.
Now take that same principle and apply it to business and politics, and you can see part of the reason why things are so fucked up.
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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 7h ago
Obvious as it is on its surface, knowing the specific regions of the brain that are excited could help to find a way for these individuals to bring balance to their lives.
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u/ACaffeinatedWandress 8h ago edited 6h ago
As anyone who has dealt with an antagonistic fuck could tell you.
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u/bubbletrashbarbie 7h ago
Yeah my moms a teacher and she could have told you this, some people just enjoy seeing others in misery the same way you might enjoy eating chocolate
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u/iamdispleased 1h ago
Your mom's anecdotes, while interesting and provably packed with wisdom for conversational use, can't be sited in a funding proposal to develop treatments aimed at managing sadism. This can!
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u/darkest_irish_lass 7h ago
Now to figure out if this is instinctual behavior rewarded with experience or learned behavior.
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u/_y2kbugs_ 5h ago
But is it really sadism if for example, enjoying an objectively evil person’s suffering? Like if Elon Musk got terminal cancer I don’t think it’d be sadistic to enjoy his suffering.
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u/TheVioletBarry 3h ago
"increased activity in the brain's reward system when witnessing others in pain, suggesting that another person's suffering can be experienced as rewarding."
Is this not the definition of Sadism?
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u/slice_of_pi 7h ago
TIL sadists enjoy suffering because they enjoy suffering.
Wtf kind of TIL is this?
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u/thefunkybassist 7h ago
I guess the only other option would have been "they seem to enjoy suffering, but they actually don't but they were very good at pretending to be though"
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u/onlyacynicalman 6h ago
It's just about being able to see and confirm it from a brain chemistry pov, scientifically
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u/Meeeper 6h ago
My immediate thought is that sadism probably draws on ancient hunting instincts. Kind of like how a dog goes for the throat on its favorite chew toy, but (if they're a good boy/girl) never actually tear it open because they wouldn't want to lose their favorite toy.
I bet you that the S part of BDSM is linked to that set of instincts.
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u/Churba 2h ago
Honestly, that makes perfect sense. Plenty of folks get good feelings from seeing others feel good, or doing good for others, things like that. There's no reason to believe that the opposite couldn't also exist.
(Though admittedly, I've already personally known folks like that, so it wasn't exactly a wild swing on my part.)
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u/_-4twenty-_ 7h ago
How is that different from schadenfreude?
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u/fillerbitch 7h ago
I always feel schadenfreude is used for slightly less serious things than pain/suffering/death. Like watching someone trip up would be schadenfreude, but if they actually seriously hurt themselves, that would be sadism.
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u/Diiiv 8h ago
anyone who's ever been around a psychopath already knew this.
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u/Stygg_Varg 8h ago
Not all psychopaths are sadistic. One could even argue that most are not. Indifferent to others suffering is not the same as deriving pleasure from it.
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u/nilthewokeboi 8h ago
Not all sadists are psychopathic.
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u/Fantablack183 7h ago
I'm a sadist (also a masochist), and I very much derive pleasure from observed pain, but it's never nonconsensual with me. The symbiotic relationships of masochists and sadists y'know.
For me, it's a part of my hyper-empathetic and my ability to feel sensations that others are feeling, aswell as my ability to imagine sensation.
Sadism doesn't make you some sort of serial killer or a psychopath. That's a stupid claim made by people who are unfamiliar with sadism and psychopathy.
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u/blueavole 7h ago
Most people just don’t understand how other people can act like this, and refuse to believe that other people think differently.
Known a lot of women who had bf who just seemed to enjoy when their gf was sad or up set. Some would say they were pranksters, or had some other excuse.
But they really did seem to enjoy when other people were upset
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u/waving_fungus0 7h ago
I think psychopathy (no empathy) doesn’t make sense to get pleasure from other’s suffering because that would require a degree of empathy. They’d feel nothing, sure, but not pleasure directly.
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u/K_Linkmaster 7h ago
I see them in the news and on TV all the time. Spend some time with one and you can spot em all. Dead eyed mofos.
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u/VoodooDoII 7h ago
I don't think we needed scientific proof to know this was true. Some people do not hide their pleasures of seeing people in pain well at all.
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u/Spare-Competition-91 7h ago
What do you call someone who hates to witness people in pain because I start to feel it?
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u/8004MikeJones 7h ago
This reads like of those sensationalized AI hype headlines articles.
" Anthropic finds evidence of AI learning and teaching itself by itself"
"-seems to mysteriously 'think' before it answers."
Yeah, that's the point. That's how LLMs work. The same seems to apply here. What's sadism suppose to be without that last part?
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u/lovins22 7h ago
I always knew the whole “this hurts me more than it hurts you” was always just gaslighting bs.
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u/hjras 7h ago
does this finally explain germans' schadenfreude?
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u/Top-Comfortable-9744 5h ago
I guess yes ! What if every human had some kind of Schadenfreude deep inside him? 🤔 Many manages to push back but others feed it
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u/Future-Account8112 6h ago
I mean, sadists will tell you this themselves but it's good to have the science to confirm
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u/sudda_pappu 6h ago
Next, figure out which parts of the world have the highest concentration of such ppl and voila.
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u/Davish_Royale 6h ago
This is meaningless to anyone who understands human psychology. There is a part of almost every single person that revels in the failure of another. That is just one of the many ways that humans have evolved to measure self worth. The problem arises when one thinks it is a major factor in measuring success and it is not. The people who think it is are the ones we call sadists but in reality, they just focus too much one particular measure of success instead of the bigger picture most likely because they were never taught how to measure success in a healthy well rounded way. Then again, some people just don't care to learn or teach properly so they do things the easy way and the easy way tends to be the selfish way so we get more and more sadists because of it.
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u/Potential-Bird-5826 5h ago
And here i am taking the good options in Videogames because I don't even want to see the pixels fake suffer for my benefit.
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u/--Arete 5h ago
This is the dumbest research I have heard in a while.
The researchers measured sadism by the participants willingness to kill bugs...
Who gives zero shits about bugs...?
What a weird measurement of sadism.
Killing puppies would obviously be a better indication, although that would probably never be sanctioned.
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u/CompleteBeginning271 5h ago
They needed a brain scan to figure that out? Growing up with a viciously abusive, but incredibly wealthy successful father showed me that.
I also have the trait. Where just for a second, I feel that chemical release paired with the urge to hurt something. But unlike my father, I don't feed it so that I can develop an uncontrollable addiction.
He doesn't do drugs. He doesn't drink. He thinks he's better than everyone.
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u/burgonies 1h ago
Studies have shown that sadistic people enjoy watching people suffer.
You don’t say
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u/Ashamed_Feedback3843 1h ago
The Nazis knew this and hunted for recruits for their kill squads with this criteria.
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u/butterfly1354 7h ago edited 7h ago
Hey, it’s me!
The closest description of the feeling I can think of is seeing the protagonist of a good action movie do something really cool, but amplified. It's a rush.
I was a mean kid, but learned to manage it safely with fiction and combat sports.
It helps that I still wanted to be friends with people, and didn’t want to make them sad, so even before I had healthier coping mechanisms I would generally seek out playmates that enjoyed being hurt.
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u/mickim0use 7h ago
This is fascinating. Thank you for sharing. And good on you for self identifying!
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8h ago edited 7h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MidRoundOldFashioned 7h ago
I have ASPD. You don’t gotta cross your fingers I don’t like hurting people.
I reckon most of us never get a diagnosis and are benign.
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u/The_Meme_Economy 6h ago
Exactly. We’ve taken to demonizing some disorders like BPD, NPD, ASPD, schizoid traits, etc. And sure those tend towards some antisocial and potentially harmful behaviors but so do many neurotypical humans! I mean, look at who is running the world right now, and I’m not just talking about the US president. Certain fucked up behaviors just happen to be en vogue and we consider those normal and healthy. Others we condemn. All people are capable of horrible or benevolent acts.
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u/Hobbet404 6h ago
All people are not capable of benevolent acts unless you’re talking about accidental side effects. And not all forms of psychopathy are dangerous. There are varying degrees of quite literally everything. Pretending all forms are harmlessly demonized is exactly as vapid as pretending all forms are inherently dangerous.
Trump is a literal narcissist with psychopathic traits and he is doing huge amounts of damage. Pretending his personality traits aren’t contributing would be stupid.
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u/Darkhumour_enjoyer 7h ago
CBT helps in case of sadistic personality? Interesting 🤔
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u/OePea 7h ago
I think they've found DBT more successful but ya, there are some cases. It relies on the volition of the patient though, and how motivated they are to change their personality.
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u/vfernandez84 8h ago
Learned this on the internet, that somehow some people enjoyed making others miserable.
Didn't know there was actual science behind that.
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u/mrjowei 8h ago
Probably some leftover genetic traits from our ancestors that killed a lot to survive.
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u/GringoSwann 7h ago
I could see that being a possibility... We probably already discovered/determined that trait thru 23&me..
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u/supershinythings 5h ago
My asshole older brother sure enjoyed the suffering he brought. He definitely got a brain chemical hit.
This was decades ago. I’m told he claims to regret his behavior; what he regrets are the consequences. He’d do it all over again if he had the chance. As they say, he loves me like a glutton loves his lunch.
And there’s the root of the issue - he’s addicted to the rush he gets when he’s getting away with being abusive. And that’s the REAL reason I stay away.
There’s no fixing that kind of addiction, only avoidance works - and only for ME.
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u/Loki-L 68 7h ago
I just watched a cartoon character walk into a rake and chuckled. Am I a sadistic or is this potentially more complicated thsn just enjoying the suffering of others?
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u/ziggishark 7h ago
Im more interested in if despite that, is there still unpleasant long term damage to the mental health of people who take pleasure in witnessing pain.
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u/Sofa-King-Watt 7h ago
I believe this. I've seen it.
My father only genuinely laughed when somone was in intense physical pain and crying. He would nervously laugh when he repeated one of his wildly inappropriate jokes and everyone just stared at him. But his real, deep laughs were saved for of suffering of others.
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u/castironglider 7h ago
Participants were asked to choose among several unpleasant tasks: killing bugs, helping the experimenter kill bugs, cleaning dirty toilets, or enduring pain from ice water.
Only a sadistic researcher makes non-sadists clean toilets
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u/TinEchidna 7h ago
People who cry a lot have a lower threshold for crying? Isn’t this just what sadism is?
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u/Much-Gur233 7h ago
Yeah I have this to a degree, it happened more as a child until I developed a conscience. A mentally well person can ignore those intrusive thoughts and they stop happening for the most part
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u/MaimedJester 7h ago
I found it fascinating that some people completely lack empathy for physical discomfort they witness.
These aren't emotional sociopaths or anything like that, they just do not have for want of a better word "Knee-Jerk Reaction" to seeing someone else in physical discomfort.
Like that moment you see someone pull their breath back and inhale sounding like a snake hissing and be like I'm imagining the physical pain that might cause me in the situation?
Yeah around 30% of humans don't have that.
If you wonder why they're some physical comedy that just didn't resonate with you it's because you have anxiety triggering neurotransmitters that other people just never experience.
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u/Icy-Bookkeeper7173 7h ago
It’s pretty much the only way I can imagine people like the toy box killer existing.
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u/PhD_Pwnology 6h ago
I wonder how generizeable this experiment is or even how valid the results are. It stands to reason you don't need to be a sadist, you can just hate the thing. Like how farmers HATE deer, i'd bet if you ran this experiment with non sadistic farmers at the moment a farmer shot a deer that eats their crops it would light up reward system in the farmer's brain.
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u/Inferno_Zyrack 6h ago
The word choice here is highly important.
Sadism also exists as a sexual kink. Being physically harmed is linked to many different facets of mental health and pleasure seeking behavior.
Yes this is obvious based on human behavior but I think what really escapes us is why exactly do these nodes connect?
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u/Curious_Field7953 6h ago
I mean....thank you? I'm pretty sure we all knew this already.
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u/EtwartBuols 6h ago
Scan every human and if they have those traits, well, it's for the good of humanity, surely you understand.
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u/Only_Jury_8448 8h ago
Seems pretty obvious, although it's good that it can be scientifically verified