Schadenfreude

1. Schadenfreude: A Universal Human Experience

“The misfortunes of others taste like honey.”

Cross-cultural emotion. Schadenfreude, the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another person, is not unique to any one culture. Various languages and cultures around the world have their own terms and expressions for this complex emotion, including the Japanese, French, Danish, Dutch, Hebrew, Mandarin, Serbo-Croat, Russian, and Melanesian cultures.

Examples of Schadenfreude:

• Enjoying a news correspondent getting tangled in her scarf on live TV
• Feeling pleased when a rude person's card is declined at the shops
• Laughing at tattoo fails

Confession and acceptance. The author confesses to enjoying daytime TV, smoking, being late, and sometimes feeling good when others feel bad. This confession sets the stage for exploring the complexities of Schadenfreude, acknowledging that it is a part of human nature, even if it is not always socially acceptable.

2. Defining Schadenfreude: Opportunistic, Furtive, and Contextual

“Schadenfreude is usually thought an opportunistic pleasure, a spectator sport, felt when we stumble across another’s misfortune which we have not caused ourselves.”

Opportunistic pleasure. Schadenfreude is typically experienced as a spectator sport, where we stumble upon another's misfortune rather than actively causing it. This distinguishes it from sadistic pleasure, which involves intentionally inflicting harm on others. The key is the accidental or unexpected nature of the misfortune.

Furtive emotion. Schadenfreude is often felt as a furtive emotion, as outbursts of merriment at another's catastrophes are generally seen as a sign of villainy. We may be worried not just about looking malicious, but that our Schadenfreude exposes our other flaws too—our pettiness, our envy, our feelings of inadequacy.

Context matters. The enjoyment of another's pain is not hard and fast, and context matters. We are willing to see celebrities, or people from the remote past, endure horrors that would dismay us if they were happening now or to our friends. All emotions are what psychologists call “cognitive”—in other words, not simply reflex reactions to external triggers, but complex processes requiring us to appraise and judge our relationship with the world around us and tailor our responses accordingly.

3. The Evolutionary Roots of Laughter and Schadenfreude

“Laughing at someone else’s pain might lessen our own, yet across many cultures these uninhibited belly laughs have been laden with social anxiety, and not only because they suggest a lack of compassion.”

Laughter and pain tolerance. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that laughter, particularly belly laughter in response to slapstick or others' misfortunes, has been crucial to our survival. It helps us cope with physical hardship and bonds us together in groups that protect us.

Social anxiety and laughter. Across many cultures, uninhibited belly laughs have been laden with social anxiety, suggesting a lack of compassion. Some have snobbishly regarded noisy guffawing as uncouth, linking it to uneducated lower classes incapable of self-control.

Babies and Schadenfreude. Babies do not laugh when other people fall over is about not simply fear, but morality: “Historically, everyone thought babies were amoral, and you had to teach them right from wrong, but they do have a sense of fairness and a strong sense of empathy—if someone has hurt themselves, babies can see that and are concerned.”

4. Justice, Deservedness, and the Allure of Comeuppance

“Nothing makes the world gleam like bad people getting the fate they deserve.”

Karma and moral equilibrium. Nothing makes the world gleam like bad people getting the fate they deserve. For one glorious moment, the stars align, the universe delivers and the commuter who barged past us down the station stairs, knocking the shopping out of our hands, misses their train. As we glide onto the platform, we watch as they curse and check their watch and curse again, and feel ourselves warmed with self-satisfaction.

Emotional justice. Justice is not just a rational, unemotional process; it is also deeply emotional. The public cheers when swindlers receive long prison sentences, and tabloids salivate over the unpleasantness of prison cells. This suggests a desire to add an extra dose of humiliation to the punishment.

Justice addiction. Some individuals may become addicted to the pleasure of seeing justice done, seeking it out in various aspects of life. This can lead to dysfunctional behavior, such as seeking to inflict pain on others for minor transgressions.

5. The Perils and Pleasures of Downward Social Comparison

“It’s sweet to know from what misfortunes you are free.”

Downward social comparison. People can bump up their self-esteem by comparing themselves to people less fortunate than themselves. This is a common technique for enhancing self-regard, especially in the face of personal challenges.

Cancer patients and comparison. Cancer patients often compare themselves to imaginary others who are worse off, such as those without family support or those who have to travel long distances for treatment. These comparisons help them cope with their own situations.

Social media and comparison. Social media offers opportunities to compare ourselves to those worse off, but it also presents the risk of feeling worse due to the curated and filtered lives of others. The key is to be mindful of the comparisons we make and their impact on our self-esteem.

6. Envy, Rivalry, and the Fragility of Self-Esteem

“In the adversity of our best friends we always find something that does not displease us.”

Envy and friendship. It is not hard to cope with our friends’ disappointments, it is their triumphs which are difficult to bear. And so, “in the adversity of our best friends we always find something that does not displease us.”

Measuring worth. We are happiest when we are surrounded by people who have slightly less than us. When psychologists asked in one study, “Would you prefer it if other people’s children were less or more good-looking than your children?,” most said they would be happier in a world where everyone else’s children were less good-looking than their own.

The role of Schadenfreude. A flicker of Schadenfreude can neutralize the envy, catching it before it turns into hostility and spite. And there’s one area where we need its compensations most of all: in our conflicted, profoundly masochistic relationship to celebrities.

7. Schadenfreude in the Workplace: Power Dynamics and Subversion

“One of the places Schadenfreude really comes through is when you hear a story about how an asshole is brought down.”

Workplace dynamics. In an office, Schadenfreude can sprout and multiply prolifically. Sometimes we are explicitly encouraged to feed it. You know those horrible clip-art pictures of corporate people in suits high-fiving that are supposed to inspire? Behind each celebratory smile is another company’s lost contract.

Bosses and comeuppance. We love seeing our bosses trip up from time to time. Robert I. Sutton is an organizational psychologist and Stanford professor, as well as the bestselling author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide. Bob is ebullient and generous and a great deal of fun. He is also probably one of the world’s most confided-in people on the subject of terrible bosses (or “assholes,” Bob’s preferred term).

Mind tricks. Schadenfreude can provide a “mind trick” for surviving the daily indignities of work. Remember that dating study, in which seeing a love rival fail was thought to give students a little confidence boost—felt as Schadenfreude—which upped their own chances of success? Seeing your boss, however nice they are, accidentally locking themselves out of their office, or having a breakdown trying to unfold their brand-new, super-expensive folding bike, subtly rearranges the power balance.

8. Political Schadenfreude: Tribalism and Moral Indignation

“Every joke is a tiny revolution.”

Partisan politics. The more intensely we engage with politics, and the more identified we are with a particular agenda (presumably a good thing), the more Schadenfreude we are likely to feel when the other side screws up (probably slightly less good).

Group behavior. Humans are nothing if not amusingly lacking in self-awareness. Though we are highly likely to feel Schadenfreude toward the “out-group,” we are also more likely to attribute Schadenfreude to them too—since we habitually see Schadenfreude as a failing, evidence of being overly emotional and easily swayed, and a mere compensation for being the underdog who must resort to sniggering in the absence of genuine power.

Feminist activism. The power of Schadenfreude has long been known by feminist campaigners—which is satisfying, since Schadenfreude has historically been judged a peculiarly female moral failing. Kant in the eighteenth and Schopenhauer in the nineteenth century both associated sniggering at other people’s downfalls with those other womanly vices—gossip, manipulation and lying.

9. The Ethics of Schadenfreude: Navigating Moral Ambiguity

“Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

Moral confusion. We may fear we are blindly, blithely indulging our taste for other people’s disasters. Yet it is easy to forget that moral confusion is part of how we experience Schadenfreude too—that nagging worry that we won’t know when we’ve reached the line and will just keep going.

Stand-up comics. Stand-up comics recognize, and tease us with, such moments of moral confusion. Laughter might seem anarchic, but it also creates conformity. At a stand-up gig, audience members may find themselves laughing along with a joke, only to regret laughing later.

Conscience. At what point does your conscience intervene and make your delightfully frothy Schadenfreude curdle and split? At what point do you say “too much”? When a worthy environmentalist MP is discovered clearing ancient woodland to make room for his fancy new extension—and receives a catastrophic public shaming on Twitter?

10. Reclaiming Schadenfreude: A Tool for Social Commentary and Change

“What we need to understand when we detect a glimmer of Schadenfreude is that ‘What I’m doing is making myself feel more secure at the expense of someone else’s insecurity, and I don’t need to do it.’”

Recognize and admit. What we should do is notice it. Learn to recognize it,” says Perry. “Admit to it, even to other people. What we need to understand when we detect a glimmer of Schadenfreude is that ‘What I’m doing is making myself feel more secure at the expense of someone else’s insecurity, and I don’t need to do it.’ It’s a natural thing to do, but once we’re aware of it we can arrest it. We don’t need to do it; no one does. It doesn’t give us more love. It doesn’t make us more attractive.’”

Emotional flexibility. Most people who have spent time thinking about Schadenfreude agree that it is possible to feel an unexpected twinge of pleasure at the same time as experiencing very genuine feelings of concern and sympathy. It is perfectly possible to find yourself suppressing a sudden desire to laugh at the same time as wanting to console.

Social commentary. Reclaiming Schadenfreude as a tool for social commentary and change involves using it to challenge power structures, expose hypocrisy, and promote social justice. This can be done through satire, humor, and other forms of creative expression.

Last updated: April 6, 2025