WHAT is this obsession with doing people down? Just about every quiz show on television ends with some sort of vote to send a contestant packing.

We revel in voting people out, showing people up as the so-called weakest link, or the least-liked, or least-useful member of a group.

"Who do you hate most?" is the question we love to answer. It's even stretched to women's magazines, with true life stories of husbands' affairs, followed by the questions like: "Do you think Debbie should get rid of Tony?" Ring this number if you think she should send him packing.

And, of course, thousands of people reach for the telephone and tap out the numbers, with a wicked glint in their eyes. It's not exactly encouraging us to live in perfect peace and harmony. In fact, it's quite disconcerting to know what we really are about - what we'd really like to do to each other.

One radio station went so far as to put the Big Brother-style voting-out system into practice, to see who was the most unpopular member of staff.

Predictably, it backfired, and the poor recipient spent the next month alone in a darkened room. He's probably moved on now -- to a psychiatric hospital.

Yet, by and large, people appear to revel in public criticism. They love being humiliated in front of thousands, if not millions, of others.

Sada, the first person to be ejected from Big Brother house, left waving and laughing, and people adore the harsh put-downs by Anne Robinson in the Weakest Link. Even when they're labelled stupid and brainless, they receive the news with huge smiles on their faces.

This trend towards sado-masochism -- and it is a mild form of that -- may be unsettling, but like most things it has its advantages. If it carries on, it's bound to make us less intimidated by tickings-off and punishments.

There you are, sitting in your annual appraisal at work, being torn off a strip by your boss for making various cock-ups and losing the company hundreds of pounds, and how do you respond? With a chuckle of course.

Threatened with the sack brings a belly laugh; what a great time you're having!

We won't feel so bad about rejection. A letter in the post, saying you haven't got that job, could be seen in a good light. After all, you've been voted out -- and that's a hoot, isn't it?

But how long before it gets out of hand? Before long we'll be sticking people in stocks on village greens and chucking tomatoes at them for so-called pleasure.

Let's bring back niceness; shows where people win fabulous holidays and flashy cars and everyone cheers and claps, genuinely thrilled for them. Where people give losing contestants a friendly hug and where no-one is branded the runt of the litter.

Trouble is, I've an awful feeling that no-one would watch them.