Why do so many people exhibit Schaden Freude (delighted in the suffering of others)?
Interesting question! Schaden Freude is certainly alive and well these days … one need look no further than the current craze for reality tv and celebrity gossip to see how much of a thirst people have for it. We see it right here at Mahalo when people misuse the voting system, or delight when someone with a point of view different from our own is flamed by a user who passionately and eloquently dismantles that point of view. I’ve read up on some studies about Schaden Freude, and there is some agreement that it all boils down to envy. Earlier this year, the New York Times ran an interesting article called “In Pain and Joy of Envy, the Brain May Play a Role” … see the sources below for a link to the full article. Author Natalie Angier wrote that, “Researchers at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan and their colleagues described brain-scanning studies of subjects who were told to imagine themselves as protagonists in social dramas with characters of greater or le
