67 Posts That Showcase How Creative Humans Can Be When They Want Revenge

There is actual science behind why we love watching someone get their comeuppance. Researchers at Ohio State University asked 200 people to react to short scenarios where a wrongdoer was forgiven, punished fairly, or punished way harder than they deserved. The study, published in Communication Research, found that people rated the over the top punishment scenarios as the most fun, even though they admitted the forgiveness scenarios felt more meaningful.

Lead researcher Matthew Grizzard summed it up nicely when he said we enjoy stories where wrongdoers get more punishment than they technically deserve. Basically our brains know forgiveness is the mature choice while our hearts want the karma bus to arrive at full speed.

Part of this comes down to something psychologists call the just world hypothesis, the deep seated belief that people generally get what they deserve. When someone cuts in line, steals credit for your work, or scams an elderly neighbor, it creates a crack in that belief. A satisfying revenge story patches the crack right back up. It reassures us that the universe still has some kind of moral accounting system running in the background, even if real life rarely works that cleanly.

There is also a timing element to why these stories land so well. Psychologist Mario Gollwitzer studies what he calls the understanding hypothesis, which suggests that revenge feels most satisfying when the person on the receiving end actually understands why it is happening to them.

That is why the best revenge stories always include the moment the villain realizes exactly who outsmarted them and why. According to research on this topic, that flicker of recognition on the wrongdoer's face is often the most emotionally rewarding part of the whole story, even more than the punishment itself.

Interestingly, actually getting revenge in real life tends to disappoint people far more than they expect. A study by social psychologist Kevin Carlsmith found that participants who got to punish someone who wronged them in an experiment often felt worse afterward, not better, because it kept the original conflict alive in their minds instead of letting them move past it. Reading about someone else's revenge, though, comes with none of that baggage. We get all the emotional payoff of justice being served without any of the guilt, awkwardness, or lingering resentment that comes with dishing it out ourselves.

This is probably why internet revenge stories have become their own genre. They let us live out the fantasy from a safe distance. Nobody has to actually confront their nightmare coworker or petty landlord, we just get to enjoy someone else doing it brilliantly, then go back to our day feeling weirdly refreshed.