UW and the community

June 17, 2011

Getting even gets you nowhere, new book by husband-wife team suggests revenge alternatives

David Barashs horses were hungry, and it seemed, a bit angry. The University of Washington psychology professor was late to feed them, and when he went out to the barn to distribute their hay, he saw them taking their frustration out on each other.

“My wifes mare bit my otherwise good-natured gelding who then  turned around and kicked the pony,” said Barash, an evolutionary biologist. “Its counterintuitive for a victim to lash out against an innocent bystander. But its this form of redirected aggression that perpetuates pain in our world.”

Oxford University Press published “Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression, and Take Revenge,” this month.

The husband-wife team uses examples from nature, history and literature to show the pervasiveness of desire for revenge even if it means taking anger out on an innocent party. They call this passing the pain along, and say it contributes to cycles of violence in families, including suicides and domestic violence.

“Everyone knows that violence results in pain,” Barash said. “But it works the other way too.” By choosing non-retaliatory responses to pain, future pain can diminish. The couple suggests coping tools from religions, psychological counseling and relaxation training to provide alternatives to what they call “the Three Rs”: retaliation, revenge and redirected aggression.

“Better just to grieve our losses – rather than sling blame back and forth,” they write in “Payback.”

But its not that easy. Biology has hardwired us to seek payback in response to pain.

Drawing upon examples from birds, horses, fish and primates, Barash and Lipton discuss how its natural to retaliate, and turning the other cheek can make victims more vulnerable for future attacks. Barash has seen this in his studies of the social behaviors of woodchuck-like Olympic marmots. When one marmot attacks another, victims who attack another marmot within 15 minutes are less likely to be attacked again.

“Its the ‘Im not a patsy hypothesis,” Barash said. “Once attacked, you lose social standing, so you have to buck up your reputation; otherwise, word gets out that youre an easy target.”

Barash and Lipton contend that payback is often about victims righting the social scales. In humans, for instance, if rumor-spreading at work degrades a professionals reputation, the retaliatory impulse might be for the victim to spread rumors about other colleagues – a pattern Lipton saw frequently in her psychiatry practice. “People have to realize that when they are assaulted and respond with more violence, even if its just petty undermining, that the payback cycle keeps going,” Lipton said.

To rise above, take time to calm down and then choose a non-retaliatory action, the authors recommend. Its an approach they call the “11^th commandment”: always pick the response that will cause least pain. For routine annoyances like road rage or quibbles with relatives, Lipton suggests a soak in a warm bath, listening to music and reading the newspaper as possible ways to cool down.

“Learn to quiet yourself before your next action,” Lipton said. But dont turn to alcohol, she said, because it diminishes self-restraint.

For more serious offenses, preventative strategies, such as self-defense courses and home security systems, are useful ways to ward off violent crime. “Take steps to become an undesirable target,” Lipton said, adding that the character Lisbeth Salander from the Stieg Larssons “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a good – albeit extraordinary – example of how to not provoke violence, but to not tolerate it either.

A thorough and sincere apology can work for other serious wrongdoings, like adultery. In the chapter, “Overcoming,” the husband-wife team includes an 11-step “forgiveness protocol” detailing how to apologize. “I handed out so many copies of this protocol to patients,” Lipton said.

The justice system can also offer solace. “Justice is payback with a purpose,” Barash said. Its a way to “take the yearning for retaliation out of the hands of the victim. Its a hallmark of a civilization. It wont undo the wrong, but it can mitigate the pain,” he said.

Making choices to mitigate or minimize pain whenever possible is what Barash and Lipton hope to convey to readers. They realize that some forms of pain will never vanish, such as parents grief over the death of their child, which Barash and Lipton experienced 20 years ago and discuss in “Payback.”

“This sort of traumatic pain does not go away completely. Its part of lifes inevitable tragedies,” Barash said.

He and Lipton will discuss their book 7:30 – 9 p.m., Wednesday, June 22 at Town Hall in Seattle. Click here for tickets and more information.

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