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Revenge: A Multilevel Review and Synthesis
Abstract
Why do people take revenge? This question can be difficult to answer. Vengeance seems interpersonally destructive and antithetical to many of the most basic human instincts. However, an emerging body of social scientific research has begun to illustrate a logic to revenge, demonstrating why revenge evolved in humans and when and how people take revenge. We review this evidence and suggest that future studies on revenge would benefit from a multilevel perspective in which individual acts of revenge exist within higher-level cultural systems, with the potential to instigate change in these systems over time. With this framework, we can better understand the interplay between revenge's psychological properties and its role in cultural evolution.
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“Revenge, which refers to taking actions of harming someone in retaliation for an injury (Elshout et al., 2015; Jackson et al., 2019), is a global phenomenon and a causal factor in many homicides and transgenerational conflicts (Kopsaj, 2016; Jackson et al., 2019).”
From A neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict (2020) · cites this paper as Jackson et al., 2019
Citations
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References 213 · Cited by 172
Research works printed but not linked: 15
- Aristotle., 2012, Nicomachean Ethics
- Beckerman S, 2008, Revenge in the Cultures of Lowland South America
- Brown RP, 2016, Honor Bound: How a Cultural Ideal Has Shaped the American Psyche
- Bur. Alcohol Tob. Firearms., 1999, Arson and explosives incidents report
- Chagnon N, 2012, The Yanomamo
- Daly M, 1988, Homicide
- Denyer N, 2008, Plato: Protagoras
- Ericksen KP, 1992, Cross-Cult. Res., 26, 57
- Jackson JC, 2016, The temporal signature of cultural tightness-looseness
- Konečni VJ, 1974, Proc. Div. Personal. Soc. Psychol., 1, 192
- Kopsaj V, 2016, Mediterr. J. Soc. Sci., 7, 88
- New York City Police Dep., 2012, Murder in New York City
- Pascal B, 1852, Pensées
- Rasmussen K, 1931, The Netsilik Eskimos: Social Life and Spiritual Culture: Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921–1924
- Tinbergen N, 1963, Ethology, 20, 410
Metadata
- Authors
- Jackson, J. C., Choi, V. K., & Gelfand, M. J.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Venue
- Annual Review of Psychology
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2019-01-04
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 319-345
- ISSN
- 0066-4308 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-2085
- OpenAlex
- W2907771833
- Cited by
- 172
- References
- 213
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 4
- FWCI
- 2.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Forgiveness and Related Behaviors
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- revenge, cultural evolution, multi-level perspective, interpersonal conflict, social change
- MeSH terms
- Aggression, Conflict, Psychological, Cultural Evolution, Biological Evolution, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Social Behavior
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Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Revenge: A Multilevel Review and Synthesis. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103305
- The paper
- Jackson, J. C., Choi, V. K., & Gelfand, M. J. (2019). Revenge: A Multilevel Review and Synthesis. Annual Review of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103305
