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Their pain, our pleasure: stereotype content and schadenfreude
Author(s) -
Cikara Mina,
Fiske Susan T.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/nyas.12179
Subject(s) - psychology , pleasure , social psychology , harm , feeling , rivalry , stereotype (uml) , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , economics , macroeconomics
People often fail to empathize with others, and sometimes even experience schadenfreude —pleasure at others’ misfortunes. One potent predictor of schadenfreude is envy, which, according to the stereotype content model, is elicited by high‐status, competitive targets. Here we review our recent research program investigating the relationships among stereotypes, envy, schadenfreude, and harm. Experiment 1 demonstrates that stereotypes are sufficient to influence affective responses to targets’ misfortunes; participants not only report feeling less negative when misfortunes befall high‐status, competitive targets as compared to other targets, they also smile more (assessed with facial EMG). Experiment 2 replicates the self‐report findings from Experiment 1 and assesses behavioral tendencies toward envied targets; participants are more willing to endorse harming high‐status, competitive targets as compared to other targets. Experiment 3 turns off the schadenfreude response by manipulating status and competition‐relevant information regarding envied targets. Finally, Experiment 4 investigates affective and neural markers of intergroup envy and schadenfreude in the context of a long‐standing sports rivalry and the extent to which neurophysiological correlates of schadenfreude are related to self‐reported likelihood of harming rival team fans. We conclude with implications and future directions.