Few words convey as much meaning as Schadenfreude, or the joy that arises from seeing harm come to others. Schadenfreude is a complex psychological phenomenon, and researchers have only begun to look into rigorously. Psychology can tell us why we feel schadenfreude , when we feel it, and who feels it the most.

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Schadenfreude
(The joy that arises from seeing harm come to others)
Ref-MATT DAVIS,18 March, 2019

2.  Few words convey as much meaning
as Schadenfreude, or the joy that arises from
seeing harm come to others.
 Schadenfreude is a complex psychological
phenomenon, and researchers have only begun
to look into rigorously.
 Psychology can tell us why we feel
schadenfreude , when we feel it, and who
feels it the most.

3. Introduction
 Is it not a fact ?
 Like or enjoy when an opposing sports team makes a critical
mistake.
 Many of us also like it when a rival coworker gets turned down
for a promotion that we were hoping to get ourselves.
 Some people think it's funny when others trip.
 Some find it extremely satisfying that the controversial Anil
Ambani is in serious debt trap and may even go to Jail
 It's the feeling of joy in other's harm: Schadenfreude.
 The human experience carries with it a huge spectrum of feeling
that can be quantized into a hodgepodge(a confused mixture of
different things ) of flavorful words —
 The dismal sluggishness of the English melancholy(sad and
pensive)e.);
 The guilt that prevents you from imposing on others
expressed by the Thai Grena-Jai; and
 The gloating pleasure of seeing harm come to others
expressed by the German Schadenfreude.

4. Introduction
 Nuanced sentiment of schadenfreude has a nuanced nature.
 It comes in three primary flavors.
 Aggression-based schadenfreude occurs when members of a
group experience schadenfreude at the misfortunes of those
outside their group.
 The failure of a hated sports team might be enjoyable even if
they're not playing against your preferred team.
 Rivalry-based schadenfreude is driven by social comparison.
 If your neighbor just purchased a new sportscar, and the next
day it got damaged in an accident , you would feel schadenfreude
because your rival has returned to his prior, equal level of
social standing.
 Justice-based schadenfreude -It's the feeling that one
experiences when somebody finally gets what's coming to them.
 It's that warm fuzzy feeling one gets when a murderer or con
artist gets the book thrown at them.

5. Gender and schadenfreude
 Who falls into various Schadenfreude category and how can
vary quite a bit.
 For example, researchers conducted a study where the
participants and some secret confederates of the researchers
played a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma, a game that can
involve betrayal as a viable strategy.
 Then, the researchers gave their confederates an electrical
shock and measured the brainwaves of the study participant.
 When a confederate who had cooperated with the participant was
shocked, empathy-related areas of the brain lit up.
 But when that person had betrayed the participant before, the
results were different.
 Female participants felt slightly less empathy towards the
electrocuted confederate.
 In male participants, however, the area of their brains
associated with rewards lit up like a Christmas tree.
 Based on this research, it appears that men feel justice-based
schadenfreude more than women.

6. Relying on stereotypes
 One need not have been wronged by somebody to experience
schadenfreude.
 In fact, schadenfreude can be experienced when a member of a
stereotyped group experiences pain.
 The stereotype content model (SCM) asserts that, broadly, people are
stereotyped according to their perceived degrees of warmth and
competence.
 A highly warm and competent group might be, say, the middle class;
they provoke a feeling of admiration.
 The elderly are an example of a highly warm but incompetent group,
and they provoke pity.
 A low warmth but high competence group would be the rich, who
provoke envy.
 And a low warmth and low competence group might be drug users, who
provoke disgust.
 Using this framework, researchers showed study participants a random
image of a member of
 Admiration Group,
 Pity Group,
 Envy Group, or
 Disgust groups.

7. Relying on stereotypes
 Then, the participants were asked to imagine a randomly
assigned scenario happening to that person.
 An example might be an image of a wealthy businessman with a
line of text describing how a taxi just ran through a muddy puddle
next to him as he was walking down the street, soaking his
clothes.
 The participants also had sensors attached to their faces that
measured their facial movements.
 Generally, participants smiled when something good
happened to members of the pride, pity, or disgust groups.
 But whenever something bad happened to a member of the
envy stereotype group, the participants smiled far more than
they would when something good happened to an enviable
target.
 People are generally loath to report that they enjoyed seeing
somebody in pain — especially a stranger that they are making
assumptions about, so measuring facial muscles was an
excellent idea to get around this.

8. Self-esteem and psychopathy
 As for who experiences schadenfreude the most, there a few
major groups that stand out.
 Schadenfreude is particularly noticeable in children, not
because they feel schadenfreude more.
 Rather, they simply haven't learned to hide the socially
undesirable feeling.
 Instead, two groups of people stand out as particularly prone to
schadenfreude.
 Because humans are constantly comparing themselves with one
another, status lies at the heart of schadenfreude.
 Like seen above, we enjoy it when something bad happens to
high-status people;
 Taking others down a peg can make us feel like we ourselves
have gone up a peg.
 Correspondingly, people with low self-esteem tend to
experience schadenfreude more.
 When one thinks very little of oneself, seeing other,
ostensibly "better" people suffer can be a comfort.

9. Self-esteem and psychopathy
 While schadenfreude is a normal, if somewhat unsavory,
emotion, it does have a darker side.
 People who score high in the Dark Triad — narcissism,
Machiavellianism, and psychopathy — tend to feel
schadenfreude more intensely.
 In addition, depending on which of these three traits are stronger,
people feel schadenfreude in different ways.
 Narcissists, for instance, enjoy downward social
comparisons more — such as when a coworker received a
poor yearly review.
 In part, this effect occurs because both schadenfreude and
the Dark Triad personalities require a degree of
dehumanization.
 Healthy humans need the conditions to be right for their
empathy to switch off, allowing schadenfreude to be
experienced.
 Psychopathic people, however, don't have that barrier in
their way, making it easier for them to feel the perverse
pleasure of watching misfortune befall others.