The Price of Revenge

In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews James Kimmel Jr., a lecturer at Yale University, about the psychology of revenge. The conversation explores a case study of Michael Stokes, who committed a double murder fueled by rejection and rage, and Kimmel's own experience with bullying that nearly led him to commit a violent act. Kimmel discusses his time as a lawyer and how the legal system can be a means of enacting revenge, which he compares to drug addiction, explaining how grievances activate the brain's reward circuitry. He also introduces an anti-revenge intervention called the non-justice system, where victims enact all the roles of a courtroom trial, and touches on the role of revenge in historical events and modern conflicts, as well as the potential for public health strategies to address revenge-seeking behavior.