The article below struck a chord with me after following the "Power of Hatred" forum.

"How Conflicts Escalate: Overreacting to Perceived Slights

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By Marina Krakovsky

“If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” we say, and “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Conventional wisdom and decades of research point to the universal human tendency to reciprocate, responding to good or bad acts in kind. But if people only give as good as they get, how do conflicts escalate?

The answer, according to recent University of Chicago research, is that positive and negative reciprocity are not symmetrical: we retaliate against selfishness more than we reward generosity—even when the slights are only illusory.

Researchers led by psychologist Boaz Keysar asked participants to play a “dictator game,” in which one player acts as a dictator and decides how to split a sum of money with a second player. One group of dictators started with $100 and gave a portion to the second player; the other group of dictators started with no money but took part of $100 from their partner. Later, when participants rated the dictators’ generosity, they judged the taking group inordinately more harshly than the giving group. “We found if I give you $50, you think I’m more generous than if I take just $30 from you, which is mind-boggling,” Keysar says. Furthermore, takers do not realize how greedy they appear to those on the receiving end.

These skewed judgments led to increasing selfishness with each interaction: when participants switched roles, the new dictators responded to seemingly greedy splits with less generosity themselves, the pattern continuing with each subsequent role reversal.

To stop such downward spirals, the research suggests, it is not enough to give back what you took. “To undo a negative action,” Keysar observes, “you have to go beyond reciprocating in kind.”

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=more-tit-than-tat&sc=CAT_ES_20090409

A few posters claim a 'right' to "respond in kind". Humans feel slights (real or imagined) more than we do compliments or generosity. I see little benefit to human enlightenment and wonder how this behaviour evolved.

Comments please.

,I see little benefit to human enlightenment and wonder how this behaviour evolved. ,

This behaviour did not evolve. It has been part of the nature of man since Adam and Eve. Simple as that.

Ever heard your own recorded voice? It sounds different doesn't it?
Our skulls distort what we hear.
I believe it's our very sense of Self, our deepest rooted, pre-animal, dawn of time, deep sub-conscious sense of our own identity, that it's this Primeval Ghost that distorts our perceptions of, and emotional reactions to, our own behaviour and inter-actions in the world around us.
It's the nature of the beast, and inescapable perhaps?

Maximillion

Interesting point regarding the difference from our voice we hear and that which others do. Since I began acting I have improved my verbal skills in terms of tone. Having to convey a variety of emotions such sarcasm or sympathy according to what the director requires, means I am less misunderstood when speaking in the real world.

As for slights impacting on our emotional equilibrium more than positive experiences this can be relearned. A lot of cognitive behavourial psychology is about learning to reinterpret how and the way we think. I manage my bouts of depression and to a lesser extent (because it is more difficult) anxiety, using these methods as well as meditation to regain 'mindfulness'; that is being in the moment rather than fretting about what was or what may be.

Therefore, I don't think we are completely hard-wired and have to accept that as the status quo. That the brain is more malleable than thought previously, is becoming a much studied part of neurological science.

How much is the essential 'me'? Am I just the sum of all my experiences? Or more than that? I know I can change, therefore I believe it is possible for others to change as well.

Certainly wouldn't argue with that Frackers, I'm walking proof of it myself.
I made huge changes in myself a long time ago in a different galaxy, so to speak, using all of the above and more besides, a long and difficult process, but ultimately successful.
I wonder though if that changed anything much in my deep-self, or just my ability to interpret and control it?

Cousin Id (examinator)quotes a paper he read in which nature was given up to 40% on average responsibility for control/influence over nurture. Apparently the varying degrees of impact of nature on nurture stimulus increases the variance exponentially(?). I don't pretend to understand in detail but I think this would in part explain the different responses.
As half brothers we were raised apart in very different circumstances.I'm older yet share many similar UNCOMMON attitudes yet temperamentally we are very different.

I would slit 50/50 regardless of previous treatment but Id would have difficulty with the split because of the lack of 'need' factor. I can see he would give 70/80%.also regardless.

I wonder if the statistical analysis really says much for people except in the abstract cumulative mean(?) average?
My understanding of nature is that if taken on a wide enough canvass one can make conclusions that are worthless at the individual level. I wonder also at the impact of cultural or experiences in life affecting a made up situation. But it's interesting anyway.