Aggression As A Neural Pleasure Sensation

I'm going to share some findings from a study by psychology researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University without going into the methodology, which you can access on their report. They asked why people show such a ready tendency to harm people in opposing groups. Think what you wish on MAGAts. In this study, the researchers found that participants (35 male college students) "who were more aggressive against outgroup members (students from a rival university) versus ingroup members (students from their own university) exhibited greater activity in core regions of the brain’s reward circuit-- the nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex-- while they decided how aggressive to be."

The findings suggest that harming outgroup members is especially rewarding and associated with the experience of positive emotions. Such psychological reinforcement mechanisms may help explain why humans seem so prone to intergroup conflict, Chester said.

“This finding helps to balance the narrative about the psychological processes that underlie aggression against outgroup members, which typically emphasizes negative emotional states such as anger and fear,” Chester said. “This study showed that positive emotions may play a role in motivating intergroup aggression, which suggests many new directions for future research on this topic and informs potential interventions that seek to reduce group conflict.”

The findings raise the possibility that one day treatments that disrupt the reward of intergroup aggression might help to reduce the costly and persistent human phenomenon of violence toward other groups, Chester said.

...“These new findings fit nicely with our previous research, which has repeatedly implicated the brain’s reward circuitry (i.e., the nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex) in promoting aggressive acts,” he said. “We have advanced this line of investigation by showing that such reward activity during aggression exerts even more of an effect in an intergroup context than in a nongroup context.”

While the researchers weren’t surprised by the new findings, they were surprised to find such results even when experimenting with a weak group rivalry.

“Many groups have ancient histories of deep hatred of one another and our use of rival universities didn't even come close to capturing what many truly problematic intergroup conflicts look like around the world,” Chester said. “We chose such a mild intergroup rivalry for several reasons, a major one being that invoking a deeply rooted intergroup conflict might cause our participants undue distress. But it was still surprising to see such clear results despite our use of a relatively minor intergroup rivalry. I surmise that our observed effect would be even stronger in the context of intergroup conflict between two groups that deeply hate each other.”

A narcissistic sociopath like Señor Trumpanzee obviously has drives that trump whatever is going on with his nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. In an interview with his pal, fascist radio host Wayne Allyn Root Trump tossed a grenade towards Kevin McCarthy, announcing that his endorsement of McCarthy was just for reelection to his congressional seat (in an R+31 district, even redder than his current R+22 district), and not to be Speaker. He said McCarthy's decision to pull out of the select committee, which Trumprefers to as a watch hunt and a one-sided kangaroo court, was a screw-up: "This committee," said Trump, it was a bad decision not to have representation on that committee. That was a very, very foolish decision because they try to pretend like they’re legit, and only when you get into the inner workings you say 'what kind of a thing is this?' Just a one-sided witch hunt."

McCarthy had originally nominated Gym Jordan (R-OH), Jim Banks (R-IN), Dusty Armstrong (R-ND), Troy Nehls (R-TX) and Rodney Davis (R-IL). Pelosi rejected obvious obstructionists Jordan and Banks but accepted the other 3 and asked McCarthy to appoint two more. Instead he said the GOP wouldn't participate at all, at which point Pelosi appointed Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), two very conservative Republicans who detest Trump and voted to impeach him.

Now Trump is whining that there's no one on TV to present his side of the argument, although committee members have said they would be delighted to have Trump on himself as a witness. Trump has been screeching about equal time but would never allow himself to testify under oath about the coup.