The Effect of Malicious Envy on Schadenfreude When Schadenfreude Is Elicited Through Social Comparisons

Abstract

Previous studies have investigated whether envy, particularly malicious envy, increases feelings of schadenfreude and whether this effect is evident in both gain and loss frames. However, as a social-comparison-based emotion, schadenfreude was not investigated through social comparisons in these previous studies. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether malicious envy influences schadenfreude when schadenfreude is elicited in the context of precise and ambiguous social comparisons. To address this issue, participants in the present study were asked to play a monetary game with several other players. In the experimental condition, participants gained less or lost more than the other player; in the control condition, both the participants and the player gained little or lost much. Subsequently, the participants observed that the player encountered a misfortune, that is, gained less or lost more money than the participant. The results showed that when participants knew the exact amount of monetary gained and lost by themselves and the other player (i.e., precise social comparisons), malicious envy increased feelings of schadenfreude only in the loss frame rather than in the gain frame. More importantly, malicious envy turned out to reduce feelings of schadenfreude in both gain and loss frames, when participants did not know the exact amount (i.e., ambiguous social comparisons). The findings provide novel evidence that malicious envy does not always increase schadenfreude particularly when schadenfreude is elicited through social comparisons.

Competition influences outcome processing involving social comparison: An ERP study

“…It has been suggested that being inferior to others might elicit strong negative emotions (e.g., anger, envy, frustration, and pain). These negative emotions might enhance individuals' motivations to change this inferior situation (e.g., improving oneself or pulling others down; e.g., Lin & Liang, 2021a, 2021b; Van de Ven et al., 2015), leading to increased LPP responses (Lin & Liang, 2021a). For the current study, negative outcomes involving social comparison might increase motivations to change the inferior situation to some extent.…”

Altered Putamen Activation for Social Comparison-Related Feedback in Social Anxiety Disorder: A Pilot Study

“…In healthy individuals, social comparison increases or decreases the value of the consequences of own actions and performances depending on the outcomes of others [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that social comparison influences striatal activationsin particular, activations of the putamen and ventral striatumduring feedback processing [49][50][51][52][53].…”

When I Hate to Follow You: Hate-Following, Envy, and Schadenfreude on Instagram

“…Nevertheless, benign envy could predict higher schadenfreude when the target belongs to a relevant social comparison (van Dijk et al, 2006). It was also shown that the link between malicious envy and schadenfreude occurred only when the outcome of social comparisons are precise, but not when social comparisons are ambiguous (Lin & Liang, 2021). The present study specifically assesses whether the prediction of schadenfreude from the temporal unfolding of distinct envy components (pain, followed by benign/malicious envy) differs when an envier is at the same time hate-following the target on Instagram.…”