Why pain means pleasure for bullies

Chicago: Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behaviour suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, US researchers said.

While this may come as little surprise to those who have been victimised by bullies, it is not what the researchers expected, Benjamin Lahey of the University of Chicago, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

"The reason we were surprised is the prevailing view is these kids are cold and unemotional in their aggression," said Lahey, whose study appears in the journal Biological Psychology.

The researchers compared eight boys ages 16 to 18 with aggressive conduct disorder to a group of eight adolescent boys with no unusual signs of aggression.