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- A new model of schadenfreude suggests that there are three subtypes of "nuisance-joy".
- The study also suggests that depersonalization, the ability to see others as less than human, is the key element of schadenfreude.
- The model could lead to a deeper understanding of chastenfreude and psychopathic traits.
Most people would probably deny it, but everyone felt a little joy at the pain or failure of another person at least once. Remember when a person you do not like has had a bad time, when a colleague you envy has passed a deadline, or when your stupid neighbor has opened a left-handed shop and nearly went bankrupt. Admit it, you smile a little thinking that they fall flat.
This feeling of joy felt at the misfortune of others is called schadenfreude and means "mal-joy" in German. Many people experience it, but our understanding is still a little uneven.
The three-part model
A group of psychologists from Emory University proposed a new three-part model to explain schadenfreude. Their proposal, published in New Ideas in Psychology, suggests that the motivation behind this feeling is important and that it is often necessary to consider others as inferior to humans.
Building on decades of work, the researchers suggest that three different motivations can lead to the feeling of schadenfreude; aggression, rivalry and justice.
Schadenfreude based on aggression involves the identity of the group. Often, improving the group in which you find yourself may require the defeat of other groups. This kind of Schadenfreude is the one you might feel when your favorite team rival loses a match against someone else and can not participate in the playoffs, when your team is already long.
The schadenfreude based on rivalry is similar but distinct. It is linked to individual achievements and jealousies. This happens when you do your best to do better than another person, for example when you play in a game that improves your lead over a particular player, but that does not help you otherwise. For example, when you play with the Settlers of Catania with someone and you place a colony in the place where they wanted to build one, even though there was a better option for you.
The third type is based on justice and revolves around the joy we feel when someone we believe deserves to be comforted, says someone who is successful and whom we all know about. thieves, cheats, thefts and surcharges for life-saving drugs that go to jail.
Who is most likely to
to feel Schadenfreude?
Although everyone has a little bit of time, the literature has shown that people with the traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism or psychopathy, known as the "black triad", feel more often raucous. This is also true for the sadistic and the cruel.
Researchers suggest that to feel chaotic, you have to dehumanize the person you do not care about. People with one of the black traits of the triad would already practice this dehumanization. The main author, Shensheng Wang, explains how:
One possibility is that when people experience Schadenfreude, they undergo a [temporary] A process similar to that experienced by people with many psychopathic personality traits: motivated by certain situational variables and to a lesser extent dispositional, the tax collector tends to dehumanize the victim, temporarily losing the motivation to detect his or her mind, much like a psycopath.
They further suggest that dehumanization may be the fundamental aspect of this emotion, although additional research is needed before it can be proven.
The researchers also explained that people with low self-esteem are more likely to feel uncomfortable when they see other people fail. Indeed, the success of others may pose a threat to their sense of identity and seeing the powerful fall can be a comfort.
So, am I a psychopath for feeling Schadenfreude?
Not at all. In explaining another study on schadenfreude, Mina Cikara explained that "a lack of empathy is not always pathological" and that schadenfreude is "a human response and that everyone does not I do not feel it, but an important part of us does it. " You may want to worry if you feel it regularly, but a smirk at the failure of someone you envy from time to time does not mean that you become a monster.
How can we use that
model?
It is human nature to feel the urge and to feel warm can be part of that emotion. Knowing that this familiar feeling is linked to some of the darkest elements of human nature can give us an idea of how the dark side of the human personality relates to the emotions we all have.
Dr. Wang explained the potential benefits of the study by stating: "By broadening the perspective of schadenfreude and linking all related phenomena that underlie it, we hope that we have provided a framework for deepening understanding. of this complex and multifaceted question, emotion. "
So, do not feel too bad to feel a bit of a heckle at times, but beware of doing too much.
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