Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side, McCarthy-Jones Simon

Spite seems utterly useless. You dont gain anything by hurting yourself just so you can hurt someone else. So why hasnt evolution weeded out all the spiteful people?

As psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones argues, spite seems pointless because were looking at it wrong. Spite isnt just what we feel when a car cuts us off or when a partner cheats. Its what we feel when we want to punish a bad act simply because it was bad. Spite is our fairness instinct, an innate resistance to exploitation, and it is one of the building blocks of human civilization. As McCarthy-Jones explains, some of historys most important developments--the rise of religions, governments, and even moral codes--were actually redirections of spiteful impulses.