W.W. van Dijk

Deservingness and Schadenfreude

The present study tested the hypothesis that Schadenfreude, pleasure at anothers misfortune, results when a misfortune is perceived as deserved. Participants responded to interviews in which information was provided about a student who suffered a misfortune. The male or female student had either high or average achievements and was either responsible or not responsible for the misfortune. Results showed that responsibility for the misfortune increased Schadenfreude and this effect was mediated by the perceived deservingness of the misfortune.

The role of self-evaluation and envy in schadenfreude

In this article we address why and when people feel schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortunes of others) in both interpersonal and intergroup contexts. Using findings from our own research programmes we show that schadenfreude is intensified when people are chronically or momentarily threatened in their self-worth, whereas it is attenuated when their self-evaluation is boosted; that malicious envy, but not benign envy, intensifies pleasure at the misfortunes of others; that these emotional responses are manifested in intergroup contexts via the same mechanisms; and that mere stereotypes, in the absence of any interaction or overt competition, are sufficient to elicit schadenfreude via such mechanisms. Together, these findings suggest that self-evaluation and envy both play an important role in evoking schadenfreude; people feel pleasure at the misfortunes of others when these misfortunes provide them with social comparisons that enhance their feelings of self-worth or remove the basis for painful feelings of envy.