- We all feel schadenfreude sometimes.
- It's feeling a sense of pleasure when you see other people's misfortune.
- But it could help psychologists understand dark personality traits better.
- According to researchers at Emory University, dehumanization is at the core of schadenfreude.
- This could help explain why people with dark personality traits are so insensitive.
If you've ever laughed at a video of someone falling over, then you're with the majority of other people on the internet. It's natural to get caught up in the hilarity of viral content, and easy to forget there's a person on the other end of what you're watching.
Sometimes this schadenfreude — a German concept meaning "shameful joy," or basically a sense of pleasure felt from the misfortune of others — is a little more obvious. For example, you see someone on social media getting called out for their mistakes and you pile on. Or maybe you feel glee that a rival sports team has been knocked out of a tournament.
According to psychologists at Emory University, schadenfreude can reveal something about people with dark personality traits. In a new article published in New Ideas in Psychology, the authors discuss how schadenfreude encompasses aggression, rivalry, and justice. But something more sinister connects the three.
"Dehumanization appears to be at the core of schadenfreude," said Shensheng Wang, a PhD candidate in psychology at Emory and first author of the paper. "The scenarios that elicit schadenfreude, such as intergroup conflicts, tend to also promote dehumanization."
Dehumanization means depriving a person or group of people of positive human qualities. Essentially, you perceive them as not really being human anymore, and not really feel any empathy for them at all.
When there is a disconnect between the event and the person witnessing it, dehumanization is easier. For instance, in a viral video where you don't know the person, or when a natural disaster happens and you're too far away to comprehend it.
In a sense, schadenfreude is an example of dehumanisation, because it's unlikely you'd feel so satisfied if bad things happened to people you care about.
"We all experience schadenfreude but we don't like to think about it too much because it shows how ambivalent we can be to our fellow humans," said psychologist Philippe Rochat, another author of the study.
"But schadenfreude points to our ingrained concerns and it's important to study it in a systematic way if we want to understand human nature."
Scott Lilienfeld, the third author, added that schadenfreude overlaps with several dark personality traits like sadism, narcissism, and psychopathy. On some level, it could explain the feeling sociopathic, psychopathic, or narcissistic abusers get when they hurt someone they're close to.
In relationships, for example, people on the dark personality spectrum are uncompromising, difficult, and controlling. They are attracted to successful, kind, and strong people, because they like the challenge of tearing them down.
Psychologists and therapists are undecided over whether these people really mean to harm their partners or if it's just part of their wiring that they can't control. But what is clear is they get a sense of enjoyment out of it that they thrive on, and a relationship with one is always going to be incredibly hard work.
Not feeling empathy in certain situations is normal, and it's only perpetuated by social media. Generally, as a rule, if you're worrying that you might be a psychopath, you're probably not one.
It's only a sign of a personality disorder if you have absolutely no intention of trying to sympathise with others. That's when the schadenfreude you feel might be a sign of something darker.