Schadenfreude: Rejoicing in the Misfortunes of Others

Were you ever happy (and simultaneously ashamed of your joy) to hear that someone you know has had a catastrophic failure of some sort? I suspect you probably have at some point. You may be interested to know that the Germans even have a word for this: schadenfreude.

Given that we are supposed to be empathetic animals, and that a lack of empathy is associated with all sorts of very bad psychological attributes, feeling happy about someone else's suffering (the exact opposite of empathy) is likely to be bad news, if taken out of context.

Feeling Less Alone

Let's be clear: We are not talking here about a generalized and systematic rejoicing in the misfortunes of others—the more tragic the better—but rather about the occasional comfort you may feel on hearing that someone you know has also had a failure or disappointment, comparable to the failures and disappointments that you have experienced in your own life. The reason why this may be comforting is very simple: It makes you feel less alone.

Adversities in life are distressing for many reasons, most of them very obvious, but perhaps one underappreciated aspect is that failures and disappointments make you feel alone and sometimes even socially humiliated in your misfortune. You feel as if you are the only person unattractive enough to be dumped by their partner or incompetent enough to miss a promotion. Knowing that someone you value has suffered a comparable setback will ease those negative emotions.

Lower Self-Esteem

Research has shown that those prone to schadenfreude have lower self-esteem, simply because a lower opinion of yourself will benefit comparatively more from knowing that you are not the only one who is struggling in life. It is, in effect, a simple statistical issue: If others aren't as fortunate as I thought they were, then I am not as unfortunate as I thought I was, compared to them.

There are also occasions when you secretly, or even openly, feel pleased to hear that someone you perceive as arrogant or narcissistic has been brought down a peg. Nothing wrong with this. In fact, a desire to knock someone off their pedestal and force them to eat humble pie when they are getting too full of themselves is probably a natural social drive built into our evolutionary makeup. It may even help explain Julius Caesar's assassination.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer considered schadenfreude to be a particularly despicable emotion, even worse than straightforward envy, but, then, he also thought women were inferior beings, so what did he know?

In short, schadenfreude is a very natural emotion in certain circumstances. It is rarely acknowledged because it may reflect badly on the person feeling it, but there is nothing intrinsically or morally wrong in schadenfreude. It is part of us.