Harming someone while also harming oneself may seem the antithesis of humans’ genius for cooperation but it has upsides The corpse of love is rarely cold – and it may be spite that keeps it warm. Take ...

According to a medieval legend from around 870 CE, the most famous saying about spite has a historical antecedent. The story goes that, as Viking raiders closed in on their monastery in Scotland, St.

In spite of spite's large and small impacts, and the obvious power it can hold on the human psyche, it has been 'virtually ignored' by social, personality and clinical psychologists, researchers have ...

I started writing because there was a time in my life when it looked like I would never be able to communicate clearly. In my early years, my older sister was often the only one who could understand ...

Spite seems to be a uniquely human phenomenon, but examining interactions among organisms you’d never peg as vengeful is giving scientists some insight into how the rather nasty behavior arose. It’s ...

Spite runs deep. We find it in our oldest stories. It is there in the myths of Ancient Greece. Medea kills her children, just to spite her unfaithful husband, Jason. Achilles refuses to help his Greek ...

Spite is a powerful motivating force. Yet it’s devoid of positive connotations, as in the cautionary maxim: “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.” Wikipedia pinpoints its likely futility in ...

What it’s about: Since the beginning of time, many of humanity’s accomplishments—classic songs, the moon landing, the Great Wall—were created out of spite. Naturally, our most important emotion has ...

Spiteful bacteria. Two words you probably haven’t heard together. Then again, you probably haven’t heard of altruistic bacteria either, but both sorts of microbes are out there–and in many cases in ...