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Schadenfreude Schadenfreude ) is pleasure derived from the
misfortunes of others. This word is a loanword from German. The literal English translation
is 'Harm-Joy'. It is the feeling of joy or pleasure when one sees another fail or suffer
misfortune. It is also borrowed by some other languages.
Linguistic analysis Spelling and etymology
Though normally not capitalized in English, the term schadenfreude is sometimes capitalized
to mimic German-language convention as German nouns are always capitalized.
The corresponding German adjective is schadenfroh. The word derives from Schaden (damage, harm)
and Freude (joy). Schaden derives from the Middle High German schade, from the Old High
German scado, and is a cognate with English scathe. Freude comes from the Middle High
German freude, from the Old High German frewida, and is a cognate with the (usually archaic)
English word frith. A distinction exists between "secret schadenfreude" (a private feeling)
and "open schadenfreude" (Hohn, a German word that roughly translates to scorn—outright
public derision). English equivalents
Little-used English words synonymous with schadenfreude derive from the Greek word,
epichairekakia (ἐπιχαιρεκακία). Nathan Bailey's 18th-century Universal Etymological
English Dictionary, for example, contains an entry for epicharikaky that gives its etymology
as a compound of ἐπί epi (upon), χαρά chara (joy), and κακόν kakon (evil).
A popular modern collection of rare words, however, gives its spelling as epicaricacy.
An English expression with a similar meaning is Roman holiday, a metaphor from the poem
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by George Gordon, Lord Byron, where a gladiator in Ancient Rome
expects to be "butchered to make a Roman holiday" while the audience would take pleasure from
watching his suffering. The term suggests debauchery and disorder in addition to sadistic
enjoyment. Another phrase with a meaning similar to Schadenfreude
is "morose delectation" ("delectatio morosa" in Latin), meaning, "The habit of dwelling
with enjoyment on evil thoughts." The medieval church taught that morose delectation was
a sin. French writer Pierre Klossowski maintained that the appeal of *** is morose delectation.
An English word of similar meaning is gloating, where gloat means "to observe or think about
something with triumphant and often malicious satisfaction, gratification, or delight" (gloat
over an enemy's misfortune). Gloating is differentiated from Schadenfreude in that it does not necessarily
require malice (one may gloat to a friend about having defeated him in a game without
ill intent) and that it describes an action rather than a state of mind (one typically
gloats to the subject of the misfortune or to a third party).
Related words The Buddhist concept of mudita, "sympathetic
joy" or "happiness in another's good fortune," is cited as an example of the opposite of
schadenfreude. Alternatively, envy, which is unhappiness in another's good fortune,
could be considered the counterpart of schadenfreude. Completing the quartet is "unhappiness at
another's misfortune"—which can be called sympathy, pity, or compassion.
The transposed variant "freudenschade" has been invented in English to mean sorrow at
another person's success. The term compersion, taking joy in the joy
of loved ones, is generally considered an antonym of schadenfreude.
South African terminology in colloquial terms would be "lekker vir jou"
The Finnish language contains a word with a meaning similar to schadenfreude, "vahingonilo",
which literally means "joy of misfortune". Likewise, Swedish also has a term equivalent
to schadenfreude; "skadeglädje", which translates literally to "injury joy" (the joy of watching
someone's injury - be it figurative or literal). The Dutch word "leedvermaak" (literally translatable
as "suffer entertainment") is said to be a calque of the German "Schadenfreude".
Neologisms and variants Neologisms and portmanteau words were coined
from the word as early as 1993, when Lincoln Caplan, in his book Skadden: Power, Money,
and the Rise of a Legal Empire, used the word Skaddenfreude to describe the delight that
competitors of Skadden Arps took in its troubles of the early 1990s. Others include spitzenfreude,
coined by The Economist to refer to the fall of Eliot Spitzer and Schadenford, coined by
Toronto Life in regards to Canadian politician Rob Ford.
Literary usage and philosophical analysis The Book of Proverbs mentions an emotion similar
to schadenfreude: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be
glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away
his wrath from him." (Proverbs 24:17–18, King James Version).
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle used epikhairekakia (ἐπιχαιρεκακία
in Greek) as part of a triad of terms, in which epikhairekakia stands as the opposite
of phthonos (φθόνος), and nemesis (νέμεσις) occupies the mean. Nemesis is "a painful response
to another's undeserved good fortune," while phthonos is a painful response to any good
fortune, deserved or not. The epikhairekakos (ἐπιχαιρέκακος) person takes
pleasure in another's ill fortune. Lucretius characterises the emotion in an
extended simile in De rerum natura: Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, e terra
magnum alterius spectare laborem, "It is pleasant to watch from the land the great struggle
of someone else in a sea rendered great by turbulent winds". The abbreviated Latin tag
suave mare magno recalled the passage to generations familiar with the Latin classics.
Caesarius of Heisterbach speaks of "delight in the adversity of a neighbour" as one of
the "daughters of envy... which follows anger" in his Dialogue on Miracles.
During the 17th century, Robert Burton wrote in his work The Anatomy of Melancholy, "Out
of these two arise those mixed affections and passions of anger, which is a desire of
revenge; hatred, which is inveterate anger; zeal, which is offended with him who hurts
that he loves; and ἐπιχαιρεκακία, a compound affection of joy and hate, when
we rejoice at other men's mischief, and are grieved at their prosperity; pride, self-love,
emulation, envy, shame, &c., of which elsewhere." The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer mentioned
schadenfreude as the most evil sin of human feeling, famously saying "To feel envy is
human, to savor schadenfreude is devilish." Rabbi Harold S. Kushner in his book When Bad
Things Happen to Good People describes schadenfreude as a universal, even wholesome reaction that
cannot be helped. “There is a German psychological term, Schadenfreude, which refers to the embarrassing
reaction of relief we feel when something bad happens to someone else instead of to
us." He gives examples and writes, " don't wish their friends ill, but they can’t help
feeling an embarrassing spasm of gratitude that happened to someone else and not to them.”
Susan Sontag's book Regarding the Pain of Others, published in 2003, is a study of the
issue of how the pain and misfortune of some affects others, namely whether war photography
and war paintings may be helpful as anti-war tools or, whether they only serve some sense
of schadenfreude in some viewers. Philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno
defined schadenfreude as "...largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another which
is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate." Scientific studies
A New York Times article in 2002 cited a number of scientific studies of schadenfreude, which
it defined as, "delighting in others' misfortune." Many such studies are based on social comparison
theory, the idea that when people around us have bad luck, we look better to ourselves.
Other researchers have found that people with low self-esteem are more likely to feel schadenfreude
than are people who have high self-esteem. A 2003 study examined intergroup schadenfreude
within the context of sports, specifically an international football (soccer) competition.
The study focused on the German and Dutch football teams and their fans. The results
of this study indicated that the emotion of schadenfreude is very sensitive to circumstances
that make it more or less legitimate to feel such malicious pleasure towards a sports rival.
A 2006 experiment about justice served suggests that men, but not women, enjoy seeing bad
people suffer. The study was designed to measure empathy, by watching which brain centers are
stimulated when subjects inside an fMRI observe someone experiencing physical pain. Researchers
expected that the brain's empathy center of subjects would show more stimulation when
those seen as good got an electric shock than would occur if the shock was given to someone
the subject had reason to consider bad. This was indeed the case, but for male subjects,
the brain's pleasure centers also lit up when someone got a shock that the male thought
was well-deserved. This is however is not exactly a test about schadenfreude because
it is not isolated examples of joy in other peoples suffering.
Brain-scanning studies show that schadenfreude is correlated with envy in subjects. Strong
feelings of envy activated physical pain nodes in the brain's dorsal anterior cingulate cortex;
the brain's reward centers, such as the ventral striatum, were activated by news that the
people envied had suffered misfortune. The magnitude of the brain's schadenfreude response
could even be predicted from the strength of the previous envy response.
A 2009 study indicates that the hormone oxytocin may be involved in the feeling of schadenfreude.
In that study, it was reported that when participants in a game of chance were pitted against a
player they considered arrogant, inhaling oxytocin through the nose enhanced their feelings
of schadenfreude when their opponent lost as well as their feelings of envy when their
opponent won. A study conducted in 2009 by Combs et al.
provides evidence for people's capacity to feel schadenfreude in response to negative
events in politics. The study was designed to determine whether or not there was a possibility
that events containing objective misfortunes might produce schadenfreude. It was reported
in the study that the likelihood of experiencing feelings of schadenfreude depends upon whether
an individual's own party or the opposing party is suffering harm. This study suggests
that the domain of politics is prime territory for feelings of schadenfreude, especially
for those who identify strongly with their political party.
In popular culture In the 2003 Tony Award-winning musical Avenue
Q, the song "Schadenfreude" parodies the language instruction songs of Sesame Street. The song,
sung by characters Gary Coleman and Nicky, describes schadenfreude as "German for 'happiness
at the misfortune of others'". In the song, schadenfreude is also described as "making
me feel glad that I'm not you" and "people taking pleasure in your pain". The characters
use examples like "D'ja ever clap when a waitress falls and drops a tray of glasses?" and "Don'tcha
feel all warm and cozy, watching people out in the rain?" as being schadenfreude.
A 2005 episode of the television drama Boston Legal carries the term as its title. In the
episode attorney Alan Shore describes this condition to a jury in order to describe the
only way they could possibly attain a guilty verdict against his client. In the 2006 Hellblazer
graphic novel The Red Right Hand, it is revealed that schadenfreude has saved the world.
In 2008, Lyons Press published a humorous book on the phenomenon: "Shadenfreude, Baby"
by author Laura Lee. Science Fiction author John Scalzi developed what he calls the Schadenfreude
Pie, to be enjoyed while "reveling in the horrible misfortunes of others." The recipe
can be found on his blog, "Whatever."