The personality traits most likely to seek revenge, revealed by a forensic psychiatrist, including being sensitive
A forensic psychiatrist has revealed the characteristics of people who are vengeful in a video on YouTube – and some of them may surprise you.
London-based forensic psychiatrist Dr Sohom Das, 44, has a channel called A Psych for Sore Minds, where he covers a range of mental health and crime topics.
In a video titled Character Traits Related To Revenge, Dr. Das says that anger and neuroticism are among the traits of people who are more likely to seek revenge.
“Some of them are quite obvious.
'There is anger. There is neuroticism, specifically holding grudges. Then there are narcissistic traits.
Dr. Sohom Das (pictured) recently revealed what qualities people who are likely to be vengeful can possess
'So having social confidence and a sense of entitlement, but also paradoxically [having] a feeling of insecurity.'
Further on, he adds that 'there is impulsiveness, natural aggression, a lack of empathy, being very sensitive or [having] paranoia – so you know… easily feeling disrespected or belittled.'
The YouTube biography of Dr. Das describes him as a professional consultant forensic psychiatrist and expert witness who discusses his own (anonymized) real-life cases.
According to his biography: 'Dr. Das (MBChB, BSc, MSc, MRCPsych) has 'personally assessed hundreds of patients in prisons and secured locked psychiatric wards and courts across the UK.'
It's because a study found that people feel measurably happier after taking action against others who have harmed us.
Researchers found that people not only feel good when they engage in vengeful acts, but that they actually seek out these opportunities to make themselves feel better.
David Chester and C. Nathan DeWall of the University of Kentucky tested the idea that social rejection can force us to repair our mood by any means necessary, which could mean harming those who hurt us, reports Alex Fradera with The British Psychological Association.
The team asked 156 participants to write an essay on a personal topic and then exchange it with another participant so it could be critiqued.
According to Dr. Sohom Das (pictured), some of the less expected characteristics of people who are likely to be vengeful are that they are very sensitive.
In one group, the researcher pretended to be a participant and gave everyone bad feedback, such as “one of the worst essays I've ever read.”
The team measured the participants' mood before and after they were given the chance to express their aggression. Their aggression was released by sticking pins in a virtual voodoo doll while imagining it was the person criticizing their essay.
Not only did sticking cloth dolls with pins improve the mood of the rejected participants, the researchers also noticed a point where their mood was indistinguishable from that of the other group of subjects who received nice feedback.
To understand the motives behind aggressive behavior, the researchers conducted another study with a separate group of 154 participants.