title: Their pain, our pleasure: stereotype content and schadenfreude.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Mina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cikara
authors.forename: Susan T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Fiske
mesh_terms: D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D057181:Pleasure; D012919:Social Behavior; D012933:Social Identification; D013240:Stereotyping
keywords: envy; harm; prejudice; schadenfreude; stereotypes