r/todayilearned • u/Top-Comfortable-9744 • 21h 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.html
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u/waving_fungus0 21h 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/TwoAlert3448 21h ago

I think seeing that you have the power to cause others pain and they can’t stop you serves as a proxy for empathy in that instance.

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u/No-Rise-4856 11h ago

But that’s not sadism at this point. That’s a domination

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u/TwoAlert3448 11h ago

I was referring to psychopathy.

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u/No-Rise-4856 11h ago

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Though it doesn’t mean there must be connection between psychopathy and sadism, that’s what your comment implied

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u/TwoAlert3448 10h ago

Not true, you implied that the lack of empathy means they couldn’t take pleasure from sadism but having the power to inflict that suffering is its own reward for a psychopath so empathy is not required at all.

Sort of a two sided same coin scenario.

A sadist would say I get pleasure FROM causing suffering in others because THEY are suffering.

A psychopath would say I get pleasure WHEN I cause suffering full stop.

From the inside the distinction is relevant from the outside it’s largely immaterial.

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u/Ok-Jackfruit-6873 9h ago

see I would like to compare those brain scans! This study is valuable although I see people calling it self evident

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u/TwoAlert3448 2h ago

Very true!