Men feel happier when they earn more than their colleague

Recent research reveals that there is a “reward center” in the male brain and whenever a man is paid more than his co-worker this center lights up vigorously smashing the traditional economic theory that assumes the only important factor is the absolute size of the reward.  This new result showed that the relative size of one’s earning also played an important role in triggering the “reward centre.”   The research studied 38 pairs of male volunteers.  These volunteers were asked to do a task at the same time and were promised payment for their success.Neuroscientist Dr Bernd Weber explains: “One area in particular, the ventral striatum, is the region where part of what we call the ‘reward system’ is located, we observed an activation when the player completed his task correctly,”  while a wrong answer and no payment resulted in a reduction in blood flow to the “reward region”. But the area “lit up” when volunteers earned money, and interestingly showed far more activity if a player received more than his partner