Schadenfreude — the pleasure we sometimes find in another’s misfortune — is attenuated by our perception of how much that person deserved the mishap and how serious the consequences were, according to new research.
The study, published in the scientific journal Motivation and Emotion, examined 291 people’s reactions to video of a bride falling into a swimming pool or a video of a man jumping into a frozen pool. People were more likely to experience schadenfreude if they believed the person deserved their misfortune.
But this feeling was reduced if the participants were told the person’s misfortune had serious consequences. The stronger the initial schadenfreude, the stronger were moral emotions like guilt, shame, and regret about the initially expressed schadenfreude upon learning of the consequences.
PsyPost interviewed the study’s corresponding author, Mariette Berndsen of Flinders University. Read her responses below:
PsyPost: Why were you interested in this topic?
Berndsen: My interest in schadenfreude stems from television programs like “the funniest home videos”. Watching these programs, I often wondered why people laugh when an innocent person suffers a mishap. For example, when a boy gets his first bike, we might laugh when he falls off the bike into a puddle on his first attempt to ride. Is it the unexpectedness of the event, or is it ‘lucky that it did not happen to me’, or is it a more malicious pleasure about someone else’s suffering? Regarding the latter, previous research has shown that when a person is held responsible for a negative action and the subsequent negative outcome, people judge that the negative outcome is deserved. Such deservingness leads to schadenfreude. In this case schadenfreude is perceived as ‘morally’ right and not as a malicious pleasure. But would we see the boy responsible for falling off his bike?
Besides that, I also wondered whether people think about the possible consequences of the mishap. In general, feeling pleased when another person suffers a serious misfortune violates moral norms about how one should behave and pleasure would be muted. There are of course exceptions, for example when a perpetrator is punished for a crime. In that case norms are not violated but upheld and people may feel pleased about the punishment. Again, schadenfreude is then perceived as ‘morally’ right. But would people still feel pleasure when they learn that the boy who fell off the bike broke his arm? If not, would they feel guilty or ashamed that they had previously laughed?
These two questions (being less responsible for a negative event and the severe consequences of that event) triggered my interest in the occurrence of schadenfreude and how people think about their expression of schadenfreude.
What should the average person take away from your study?
When you laugh at a person who suffers a mishap you may ask yourself why did you do so. The answer may reveal reasons to feel pleasure such as envying the person’s happiness (Study 1) or the person’s courage (Study 2). In that case, pleasure about that person’s mishap can make you feel better about yourself. On the other hand, the answer as to why you laughed may reveal that it is actually indecent to do so. Such awareness can change your behaviour.
Are there any major caveats? What questions still need to be addressed?
The studies clearly show the importance of the social context in which the misfortune took place. Social and moral norms relating to how one should react played an important role. In the first study, participants were less inclined to blame the bride for her misfortune probably because a wedding is an important event in one’s life. Moral norms how one should react were less important in the second study in which the person’s jumped on a frozen pool. This action would probably perceived as foolish given the chance of harm. Indeed, participants blamed the person for any harm that would occur. So researchers need to be aware that people hold social and moral norms that can impact on their responses.
Research currently in progress shows that the norms of one’s in-group can prescribe a negative attitude towards disadvantaged people such as asylum seekers. These in-group members blame asylum seekers for being in detention centres because they believe that it is illegal to seek asylum in Australia. They therefore feel schadenfreude about asylum seekers’ appalling living conditions in the detention centres. Clearly, such schadenfreude is considered a more malicious pleasure.
The study, “Reflecting on schadenfreude: serious consequences of a misfortune for which one is not responsible diminish previously expressed schadenfreude; the role of immorality appraisals and moral emotions“, was co-authored by
