(Update 8/4/07: Found the perfect image for this story on this somewhat related story.)

Via the Dilbert blog, the obvious-in-retrospect news that, duuh, assholes like making other people angry. They get off from it, even if the reward is an expression that goes by too fast to be consciously visible.

That’s what I call depressing research.

There’s a causal link with testosterone levels, which also explains that schmuck in the sports car.

Reminds me of this Stephenson quote, lifted from the funniest project page ever:

“Nothing is more annoying to sophisticated people to see someone who is rich enough to know better being tacky–unless it is to realize, a moment later, that they probably know they are tacky and they simply don’t care and they are going to go on being tacky, and rich, and happy, forever.

…This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Communism and Socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends: by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments.”

–Neal Stephenson

Seems like asshats are not only happy, they get MORE happy from rendering others unhappy. No wonder they end up on top, without remorse - hell, the misdeeds that got them there got them off at the same time.

From the article:

“It’s kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for,” said Oliver Schultheiss, co-author of the study and a U-M associate professor of psychology. … Wirth, the lead author of the study and now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added: “Better learning of a task associated with anger faces indicates that the anger faces were rewarding, as in a rat that learns to press a lever in order to receive a tasty treat. In that sense, anger faces seemed to be rewarding for high-testosterone people, but aversive for low-testosterone people.”

I picked a bad time to stop drinking.