Your Brain Is Hardwired to Keep an Eye on Bad Guys
Most people who loved the Star Wars movies (the first three released, not the crap three that came later) almost instantly developed an affection for Boba Fett, the armor-clad bounty hunter. Fett didn't have many speaking lines and he wore a helmet throughout the trilogy, so there wasn't much depth to his character. However, he was an awesome dude. There was something mysterious and dangerous and — because he was hunting down good guy Han Solo — simply bad about him. That dangerousness and badness, it turns out, is exactly why everyone liked him so much.
According to a study from researchers at the University of Southern California, people actually feel more empathy for villains than for those who are seen as "good." This is obviously counterintuitive. You would think that we'd always feel for the good people in our lives, but the research shows this is more about a certain sense of built in defense mechanisms in the brain.
"When you watch an action movie and the bad guy appears to be defeated, the moment of his demise draws our focus intensely," said Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, a co-author of the study. "We watch him closely to see whether he’s really down for the count, because it’s critical for predicting his potential for retribution in the future." In other words, there really is some truth to keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.
"We watch him closely to see whether he’s really down for the count, because it’s critical for predicting his potential for retribution."
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Aziz-Zadeh, along with Glenn Fox, a PhD candidate at USC and Mona Sobhani, a former USC grad student, decided to see what happens to our brains when we watch "bad" or "hateful" people in pain, versus those we liked in pain. To do so, they analyzed the "pain matrix" of the brain, which — according to USC's press release — is "a network that includes the insula cortex, the anterior cingulate, and the somatosensory cortices – regions known to activate when an individual watches another person suffer."
The trio set up an experiment where Jewish participants watched videos of anti-semitic people in pain and then of non-hateful people in pain. While they watched the videos, the team had their brains scanned using MRI machines so they could see how the pain matrixes in their brains activated. In each case, the pain matrix was most active while watching the hateful person.
Why We Feel for the Bad Guys
Our brains focus more intensely on villains in pain than heroes because we subconsciously assess danger, it’s survival instinct, not sympathy.
"The results further revealed the brain’s flexibility in processing complex social situations.” Fox explained in a statement. "The brain uses the complete context of the situation to mount an appropriate response. In this case, the brain’s response is likely tied to the relative increase in the need to attend to and understand the pain of the hateful person."
This finding is rather amazing. It shows that our brain kicks into survival mode even when we're actively feeling bad for the good people who are in pain. The brain knows that assessing danger is step one toward staying alive. The second step, not letting someone accidentally set off your jet pack, thus sending you plunging to your death.
[Image via Flickr - Pat Loika]
