The Joy of Pain Schadenfreude and the Dark Side of Human

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 THE JOY
of
PAIN
SCHADENFREUDE AND THE DARK SIDE
OF HUMAN NATURE

Richard H. Smith
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Richard H.
The joy of pain : schadenfreude and the dark side of human nature / Richard H. Smith.
pages cm
ISBN 978–0–19–973454–2
1. Envy. 2. Failure (Psychology) 3. Humiliation. I. Title.
BF575.E65S65 2013
152.4—dc23 2012044930

135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction

CHAPTER 1
THE HIGHS OF SUPERIORITY

CHAPTER 2
LOOKING UP BY LOOKING DOWN

CHAPTER 3
OTHERS MUST FAIL

CHAPTER 4
SELF AND OTHER

CHAPTER 5
DESERVED MISFORTUNES ARE SWEET

CHAPTER 6
JUSTICE GETS PERSONAL

CHAPTER 7
HUMILITAINMENT

CHAPTER 8
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT ENVY
 CHAPTER 9
ENVY TRANSMUTED

CHAPTER 10
DARK PLEASURES UNLEASHED

CHAPTER 11
HOW WOULD LINCOLN FEEL?

Conclusion
Notes
Index
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lori Handelman was my first editor at Oxford University Press. Do you

know someone whose judgment is so keen that you hang on her every
word? You know that whatever your own understanding might be, it is
necessarily incomplete until you have consulted her. Lori is in this category.
Lori gave the first draft of the book an initial thumbs up, and she began the
tough task of helping me turn a sow’s ear into something of better quality.
Chance favored me a second time when Abby Gross took over the project.
Upon these two rocks of Handelman and Gross, I could start a publishing
company. I was very far from solving the problems with the first draft, but
Abby rolled up her editorial sleeves and went to work on guiding it toward
the copy editing stage. Like Lori, her wisdom is extraordinary. As with
Lori, I was incapable of a confident judgment on any issue until I got her
opinion. If this final product misses the mark in any way, it is because I was
unable to act on Abby’s suggestions. I should add that the whole operation
at Oxford was superb. The group of folks, together with Abby, who thought
through the cover of the book did an exceptional job. I had imagined any
number of designs for the cover, but none was close to what the Oxford
team created. It was perfect, really. Suzanne Walker, Karen Kwak, Coleen
Hatrick, and Pam Hanley expertly guided the final draft through to its
completion as book in hand.
This book is partly a story of empirical work, done by myself and a
group of other psychologists, including Norman Feather, Shlomo Hareli,
Wilco van Dijk, Jaap Ouwerkerk, Masato Sawada, Hidehiko Takahashi,
Zlatan Krizan, Omesh Johar, Colin Leach, Russell Spears, Niels van de
Ven, Seger Breugelmans, Jill Sundie, Terry Turner, Mina Cikara, and Susan
Fiske—as well as some of my current and former students, Ron Garonzik,
David Combs, Caitlin Powell, Ryan Schurtz, Charles Hoogland, Mark
Jackson, Matt Webster, Nancy Brigham, and Chelsea Cooper. Much of this
work I summarize in this book, and I am indebted to these scholars for all
their efforts to make conceptual and empirical headway in understanding
schadenfreude.
Many friends and colleagues have contributed directly to my thinking or
have simply given me the support of their friendship, which indirectly made
this book possible. John Thibaut and Chet Insko at the University of North
Carolina, where I did my graduate work, and Ed Diener at the University of
Illinois, where I enjoyed a postdoc, were my first academic mentors. They
each made me a much better researcher and thinker. The first study on
schadenfreude that I was part of was done at Boston University, my first
academic home. Much thanks to Ed Krupat, Len Saxe, Fabio Idrobo, Jean
Berko Gleason, Henry Marcucella, Hilda Perlitsh, Mary Perry, and Joanne
Hebden for their constant goodwill during the four years I was in the
department—and to the late Phil Kubzansky, a marvelous human being of
many parts who gave me so much good advice, including these words from
A. E. Housman: “Get you the sons your fathers got, and God will save the
Queen.” What a mensch he was.
I am lucky currently to work at a place, the Psychology Department at
the University of Kentucky, that provides a friendly, respectful, and
intellectually vibrant environment conducive to getting good work done. A
special thanks to Bob Lorch, Betty Lorch, Jonathan Golding, Ron Taylor,
Art Beaman, Phil Berger, Monica Kern, Larry Gottlob, Charley Carlson,
Ruth Baer, Rich Milich, Tom Zentall, Mike Bardo, Phil Kraemer, Mary Sue
Johnson, Jenny Casey, Erin Norton, Melanie Kelley, Jeremy Popkin,
Richard Greissman, Steve Voss, and Mark Peffley.
A number of people read and gave me feedback on one or more chapters.
Mark Alicke, Phil Berger, Zlatan Krizan, Rich Milich, Jeremy Popkin, Peter
Glick, and Stephen Thielke read early versions of Chapters 9 or 10, and
their comments greatly improved each. Mark Alicke, Phil Berger, and
Stephen Thielke also read Chapters 5 and 6, and, here again, their
comments were very, very helpful. Stephen was a constant source of astute
observations about schadenfreude and other social emotions. Phil supplied
me with many pertinent newspaper clippings and magazine articles. Claire
Renzetti read Chapter 7 and gave me useful sociological references. Heidi
Breiger provided me with a judge’s perspective on assessing emotional
reactions to criminal behavior. Jerry Parrott clarified much of my thinking
about envy. Late in the process, Charley Carlson read the penultimate draft
of the entire book. This was an enormous help in fine-tuning points. Before
submitting the last draft of the book, Jon Martin, Sarah Braun, Alex
Bianchi, and Allie Martin, the undergraduates in my lab at the time, read
parts or all of the book. They also made very helpful suggestions and caught
many writing glitches. A former honors student, Edward Brown, read the
entire book and gave me especially useful comments.
My sisters, Gillian Murrell and Helen Smith, read the first draft of the
book. Their comments were extremely helpful in my being able to take a
sober assessment of where things were—what was working and what was
not. I very much appreciated their enthusiasm for what I was trying to
accomplish. My brother-in-law, Arch Johnson, who has a lot of horse sense,
was always ready as a sounding board. And my sensible and fair-minded
niece, Julia Smith, read early versions of Chapters 5, 6, and 10. Her
comments greatly assisted my efforts to clarify these sections.
There are a few people I want to single out for extra thanks. My good
friend, Mark Alicke, has had my back ever since we were in graduate
school together, when he accepted my citing the Bard rather than the latest
social psychological research. He has followed this project from its
inception, sometimes reading chapters, but always, and with inimitable
humor, giving me frank, constructive suggestions for how to get it done.
Thanks, Mark.
My brother, Eric Smith, read several drafts and helped at all stages, from
pleading with me to write the book in the first place to volunteering to do
the figures. I am not the only person who has benefited from his willingness
to help others, professionally and personally, in hugely substantial ways.
I am blessed with a family who has remained loving, patient, and
optimistic as I worked to complete the book. My younger daughter,
Caroline Smith, who shares my proclivity for punning, rather than groaning
at them, simply came up with reciprocal puns of her own. This pun-
upmanship was a sure energy boost when my vigor lagged. My older
daughter, Rosanna Smith, despite her many other activities, did the
drawings for the book. Working with her on ideas for these drawings was
by far the most fun part of this project. My wife, Sung Hee Kim,
painstakingly read the book at least five times at critical junctures. So
gladly forbearing, she also created guilt-free conditions in our home to
make it easier to complete it. More than anyone, by a country mile, she is
the reason this thing got done. Finally, I thank my parents. I owe my love of
reading and of scholarly pursuits to both. My mother, Hilary Smith, spent
many years as an editorial assistant in the English Department at Duke
University, and, during that time, helped edit the collected letters of Thomas
and Jane Carlyle. She is still quick with an adapted line of poetry for any
occasion. With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, she shall have
music wherever she goes. My late father, Peter Smith, who was a professor
of chemistry at Duke for several decades and the son of a flower and seed
shop owner in Manchester, England, knew and valued his Shakespeare, and
this rubbed off on me as well. “Lay on, Macduff, and damn’d be him that
first cries, ‘Hold! enough!’”
 INTRODUCTION

Homer Simpson’s neighbor, Ned Flanders, announces during a backyard

barbecue that he will quit his sales job to start a business called the
“Leftorium,” catering to left-handed people. Ned and Homer break the
wishbone from a turkey carcass, and Homer gets the bigger piece and the
right to make a wish. “Read it and weep!!” he exclaims, imagining a scene
of the business failing. It turns out that it does start poorly, as Homer
discovers when he passes by the store some weeks later. It is “deeeserted,”
he happily reports to the family at dinner. Lisa Simpson, ever the erudite
daughter, labels and defines the emotion he is feeling.
LISA SIMPSON: Dad, do you know what schadenfreude is?
HOMER SIMPSON: No, I do not know what schadenfreude is. Please tell me because I’m dying
to know.
LISA: It’s a German word for shameful joy, taking pleasure in the suffering of others. 1

There is no English word for what Homer’s feeling, but as Lisa tells him,
there is one in German: schadenfreude. It comes from the joining of two
words, “schaden” meaning “harm” and “freude” meaning “joy,” and it
indeed refers to the pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune.2
This book is about schadenfreude, an emotion that most of us can feel
despite its shameful associations.

GAIN FROM OTHERS’ MISFORTUNE

Although most of us feel uncomfortable admitting it, we often feel
schadenfreude because we can gain from another person’s misfortune. What
does Homer gain from the failure of Ned Flanders’s business? Actually,
quite a lot. Homer envies Ned. Although Ned is a good neighbor, he still
has it better than Homer in just about every way, from his well-equipped
recreation room with foreign beers on tap to his superior family bliss. The
envy Homer feels runs deep and takes its typical inferiority-tinged and
hostile form. When Ned fails, Homer feels less inferior. Ned’s failure also
satisfies Homer’s hostile feelings. These are heady psychological dividends
and should make Homer feel pretty good as a result. What better
tranquilizer for Homer’s inadequacy and ill will than Ned’s failure?

Perhaps you have heard this joke: two campers come across a grizzly
bear while hiking in the forest. One immediately drops to the ground, takes
off his hiking boots, and starts putting on his running shoes. The other says,
“What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear!” His friend replies, “I don’t
have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you!” While this example is
cartoonish, similar but lower-stakes scenarios like this one play out in
relationships every day. In Chapters 1 and 2, I examine the link between
schadenfreude and personal gain and show that a large part of our
emotional life results from how we compare with others. We gain from
another person’s misfortune when this “downward comparison” boosts our
rank and self-worth. We shall see that this is no small benefit.
The benefits to Homer from Ned’s failing are largely intangible, but
schadenfreude also results from tangible things. As I will stress in Chapter
3, much of life involves competition. One side must lose for the other to
win. This is captured well in Apollo 13, the film based on the near-fatal
NASA lunar mission. In this film version of events, Jim Lovell is unhappy
because fellow astronaut Alan Shepard and the others on Shepard’s crew
have the latest coveted opportunity to travel to the moon. But Shepard
develops an ear problem, and his crew is replaced by Lovell’s. This is
painful for Shepard, but Lovell’s reaction is exuberant when he rushes
home to give the news to his family. Lovell shows no hint of sympathy for
Shepard as he tells his wife what has happened.3
As viewers of Apollo 13, we are watching from Lovell’s perspective and,
with him, we experience the good news. We see that when an outcome is so
desired, its value for ourselves eclipses other factors. The extra detail that
our gain comes at another person’s expense recedes in relevance and does
little to reduce the pleasure involved. Notice, however, that Lovell would
have had no reason to delight in Shepard’s ear infection had it not furthered
his own goals. He was not happy “in” Shepard’s misfortune, but rather
“because of” it. Does this mean his joy was not schadenfreude at all? In this
book, I take a broad definition of schadenfreude. The distinction between
types of gain is easily blurred in our experience. For example, Lovell may
well have envied Shepard. As I will explore later in the book, Homer
Simpson is an exaggerated version of all of us. Envy can produce deep
satisfaction in another’s misfortune, especially in competitive situations,
and there may be few pure cases of gain uncontaminated by such features.
Plus, would we see Lovell showing his joy outside the family? Taking any
pleasure from another’s misfortune simply because we are gaining from it
seems illicit and shameful. This gives it the clear stamp of schadenfreude.
If schadenfreude arises to the extent that we gain from another person’s
misfortune, then any natural tendencies we have to favor our own self-
interests should further this pleasure. In Chapter 4, I address how human
nature pulls us in at least two directions, one toward narrow self-interest
and the other toward concern for others. Our capacity to feel schadenfreude
highlights the self-interested, darker side of human nature. Without ignoring
our compassionate instincts, I consider some of the evidence for our self-
interested side and suggest that this evidence indeed reveals our capacity for
schadenfreude.
 PLEASURE FROM DESERVED MISFORTUNES
How about deservingness? Sometimes misfortunes suffered by others
satisfy our sense of justice. In Chapters 5 and 6, I shift to this important
reason why we can feel schadenfreude. Examples are everywhere. Take the
case of Baptist minister and clinical psychologist, George Rekers. He made
headlines in May of 2010 for using a Web site, Rentboy.com, to hire a 20-
year-old male to accompany him on a short trip to Europe.4 On the surface,
this doesn’t sound like news, but Rekers quickly became the focus of jokes
on the internet and on late-night TV.5 Rekers, as The New York Times
columnist Frank Rich argued, is “the Zelig of homophobia, having played a
significant role in many of the ugliest assaults on gay people and their civil
rights over the last three decades.”6 His hiring of the Rentboy.com
employee was viewed as a case of pure hypocrisy when the hired man
claimed that he had given Rekers intimate massages during the trip. As Joe
Coscarelli noted in his blog for The Village Voice soon after the event made
news: “Please excuse most of the forward-thinking, tolerant world for being
a bit excited and snide about the news. … ”7
As shameful as schadenfreude can be, the more a misfortune seems
deserved, the more likely schadenfreude is out in the open, free of shame.
This is true especially if the standards for judging deservingness are clear
cut—for instance, if someone has committed crimes—or has behaved so
hypocritically, as with George Rekers. The pleasure is collective and free-
flowing.
I will emphasize that the desire for justice is a strong human motive, so
strong that we are biased in our perceptions of deservingness. We are
particularly biased in our reactions to being personally wronged. Our
pleasure in a wrongdoer’s misfortune is sweet indeed if we are lucky
enough to have this hoped-for event occur. Here, the desire for justice
merges with a desire for revenge against someone we dislike, even hate.

THE AGE OF SCHADENFREUDE?

Are we living in the age of schadenfreude? Just glance at the checkout lanes
in the grocery store: some of the best-selling magazines will have break-
ups, scandals, and other personal tragedies emblazoned on their colorful
covers. The reality TV industry flourishes by developing programs that pit
people against each other in difficult situations; ratings and advertising
spending speak for themselves. Of course, the internet multiplies these
trends many times over, which is why we speak of information going
“viral.” I was not surprised to find out what happens if you insert the word
“schadenfreude” in the search tool Google NGram Viewer. Figure I.1 shows
the percentage of times that schadenfreude is used among all words in
books published in English from 1800 to 2008. Starting in the late 1980s, its
use begins to increase and then rockets upward by the mid-1990s. An
analysis of the use of the word in The New York Times nicely mirrors this
pattern: in 1980, there were no instances; in 1985, only one; three in 1990;
seven in 1995; twenty-eight in 2000; and sixty-two in 2008.8 Perhaps this
upsurge in usage comes as trends in media also shift toward a focus on
people suffering all variety of misfortunes.
In Chapter 7, I examine two distinctive examples of reality TV,
American Idol and To Catch a Predator. Both shows, in memorable ways,
pioneered the pleasures of humiliation as entertainment—or
“humilitainment,” a term coined by media researchers Brad Waite and
Sarah Booker.9 Why are these shows so popular? We shall see that
humilitainment, when heightened by the way a show is edited and
structured, often arises within narratives of deservingness. These shows
provide a steady diet of pleasing downward comparisons for viewers.

Figure I.1. Google NGram for usage of “schadenfreude” in thousands of books published from
1800 to 2008.
 A BALM AND CURE FOR ENVY
I give envy its due in the next three chapters. Although envy is a painful
emotion and schadenfreude is a pleasing one, the two emotions often travel
in tandem. As Homer experiences it and as Lisa helps him understand, I
detail in Chapter 8 how misfortunes befalling those whom we envy
transform pain into a special joy. This is why definitions of envy often
include the readiness to feel pleasure if the envied person suffers.
Much can be said about envy and its link with schadenfreude. Because
envy is such a repugnant emotion, most of us are in fact more like Homer
than Lisa. We are so threatened by the feeling that we suppress awareness
of it. Even if we are aware of it, we rarely want to admit to it. In Chapter 9,
I show that this often causes envy to transmute into other emotions, ones
more palatable to ourselves and to others. In this altered form,
schadenfreude resulting from an envied person’s misfortune can seem
justified, sometimes even decent. Moreover, envy is usually hostile at its
roots. Hostility may breed dissatisfaction with passive forms of
schadenfreude. When we feel envy, strong envy especially, we not only