There Is No Joy like Malicious Joy: Schadenfreude in Young Children

Abstract

Human emotions are strongly shaped by the tendency to compare the relative state of oneself to others. Although social comparison based emotions such as jealousy and schadenfreude (pleasure in the other misfortune) are important social emotions, little is known about their developmental origins. To examine if schadenfreude develops as a response to inequity aversion, we assessed the reactions of children to the termination of unequal and equal triadic situations. We demonstrate that children as early as 24 months show signs of schadenfreude following the termination of an unequal situation. Although both conditions involved the same amount of gains, the children displayed greater positive expressions following the disruption of the unequal as compared to the equal condition, indicating that inequity aversion can be observed earlier than reported before. These results support an early evolutionary origin of inequity aversion and indicate that schadenfreude has evolved as a response to unfairness.

The role of severity and intentionality in the intensity of Schadenfreude attribution: A developmental study of Danish children

“…Yet another possibility of why children attribute schadenfreude, and which is the explanation we propose, has to do with the bringing an end to the inequality that may be seen as a threat to the Self. Shamay‐Tsoory, Ahronberg‐Kirschenbaum and Bauminger‐Zviely () indicate that schadenfreude could be due not only to the damage, but to the restoration of equality and the fact that the advantage lost by one of the characters becomes the possibility of obtaining it for the other. In stories of envy, the situation of initial inequality is a critical element, and the subsequent purpose is to end this inequality.…”

A lesion model of envy and Schadenfreude: legal, deservingness and moral dimensions as revealed by neurodegeneration

“…Thus, social comparison is crucial for describing all types of moral emotions. New approaches in the study of moral emotions have described Schadenfreude and envy as counter-empathy ( Cikara and Fiske, 2013 ) or fortune of others’ emotions ( Shamay-Tsoory et al , 2014 ).…”

“…Indeed, Schadenfreude or envy can be differently triggered by a broad spectrum of behaviours and affective scenarios ( Portmann, 2000 ). Previous studies have shown that envy and Schadenfreude have different modulators, including (i) the inferred desirability of an outcome for a target ( Haidt, 2003 ; Tangney et al , 2007 ; Takahashi et al , 2009 ; Jankowski and Takahashi, 2014 ); (ii) target likeability ( Haidt, 2003 ; Tangney et al , 2007 ; Takahashi et al , 2009 ; Jankowski and Takahashi, 2014 ); (iii) inferred target deservedness ( Feather and Sherman, 2002 ; van Dijk et al , 2005 ; Smith and Kim, 2007 ; Dvash et al , 2010 a ; Chester et al , 2013 ; Ben-Ze’ev, 2014 ; van Dijk and Ouwerkerk, 2014 ; Zaki et al , 2015 ); and (iv) subject’s perception of justice and fairness in others’ outcomes ( Feather and Sherman, 2002 ; Smith, 2009 ; Dvash et al , 2010 a ; Jankowski and Takahashi, 2014 ; Shamay-Tsoory et al , 2014 ; van Dijk and Ouwerkerk, 2014 ; Yoder and Decety, 2014 ; Najle, 2015 ; Portmann, 2017). The situations used to trigger envy and Schadenfreude in our study are in part supported by some of these factors.…”

Jealousy in Infants

“…In this case it is one that evolved due to the adaptive value of jealousy in infants when parental resources are diverted toward other offspring (Bjorklund and Pellegrini 2002;Hamilton 1964;Hart 2010b;Trivers 1974). In addition to finding that infants, including those with minimal exposure to differential treatment such as firstborn children and infants as young as 6 months, are sensitive to jealousy inducement, the universality of jealousy across cultures and species point to an unlearned mechanism that exists due to its adaptive value (Burchell and Ward 2011;Campos et al 2010;Darwin 1877;Hart 2010b;Harris and Prouvost 2014;Hobson 2010;Hupka 1991;Shamay-Tsoory et al 2014). The universality and adaptiveness of sexual jealousy have been so well established that some (Buss 2013;Sabini and Silver 2005) have argued that these factors alone constitute sufficient grounds for considering sexual jealousy a basic emotion, to be included among other early-emerging emotions, such as anger and sadness, even though it does not coincide with a distinctive facial expression.…”