Synonyms
Definition
Pleasure felt in response to learning of another person or group’s misfortune.
Introduction
Schadenfreude is a portmanteau of the German words schaden, harm, and freude, joy. Although the word “schadenfreude” has no English language equivalent, there is a word for it in many other languages, including Dutch, Greek, Chinese, and Russian (van Dijk and Ouwerkerk 2014). Children as young as 24 months old have expressed schadenfreude when a minor misfortune has befallen a preschool friend with the seemingly unfair advantage of their mother’s exclusive attention (Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2014). Thus, there is linguistic evidence for schadenfreude’s cross-cultural universality and empirical evidence for its emergence early in social development. In addition, Buss (2000) has noted that schadenfreude may be an evolved psychological mechanism designed for successful competition, and research on schadenfreude has supported this notion....
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Buss, D. M. (2000). The evolution of happiness. The American Psychologist, 55(1), 15–23.
Cikara, M., Botvinick, M. M., & Fiske, S. T. (2011). Us versus them: Social identity shapes neural responses to intergroup competition and harm. Psychological Science, 22(3), 306–313.
Colyn, L. A., & Gordon, A. K. (2013). Schadenfreude as a mate-value-tracking mechanism. Personal Relationships, 20(3), 524–545.
Floyd, T. M., Hoogland, C. E., Smith, R. H. (in press). The role of leaders in managing envy and its consequences for competition in organizations. In S. Braun, C. Peus, & B. Schyns (Eds.), Leadership lessons from compelling contexts. Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing.
Frijda, N. H. (1988). The laws of emotion. American Psychologist, 43(5), 349–358.
Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., Ahronberg-Kirschenbaum, D., & Bauminger-Zviely, N. (2014). There is no joy like malicious joy: Schadenfreude in young children. PLoS One, 9(7), e100233.
Trivers, R. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man (pp. 136–179). Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.
van Dijk, W. W., & Ouwerkerk, J. W. (2014). Introduction to schadenfreude. In W. W. van Dijk & J. W. Ouwerkerk (Eds.), Schadenfreude: Understanding pleasure at the misfortunes of others (pp. 1–14). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
van Dijk, W. W., Ouwerkerk, J. P., & Smith, R. H. (2015). Schadenfreude as a mate-value-tracking mechanism: Replication and extension of Colyn and Gordon (2013). Personal Relationships, 22(2), 299–307.
Van Vugt, M. (2009). Sex differences in intergroup competition, aggression, and warfare. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167(1), 124–134.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this entry
Cite this entry
Hoogland, C. (2016). Schadenfreude. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1468-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1468-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences