Our Pleasure in Others’ Misfortune
By CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN, NYT
The world’s highest-paid athlete began his spectacular downfall by crashing a Cadillac S.U.V. into a fire hydrant and a tree. Initial accounts of Tiger Woods’s 2009 accident reported that his wife had broken the vehicle’s window with a golf club to free him, but when word spread that the couple had been fighting over allegations of his infidelity, the smashed window became a metaphor for his shattered reputation.
As the scandal unfolded, the sports celebrity who had built an empire on his image as an upstanding family man was revealed as a glutton for extramarital sex and an author of tawdry texts to mistresses and paid escorts. Almost overnight, Mr. Woods became a target of ridicule, not to mention a website and a Twitter account with the sole purpose of propagating jokes about him.
The wicked delight over that turn of events has a German name so apt we’ve adopted it in English. Schadenfreude, or “harm-joy,” is the pleasure derived from another’s misfortune, and Richard H. Smith, a University of Kentucky psychology professor, has built a career around studying it and other social emotions. He previously edited an anthology about envy, a close sibling to schadenfreude.
As perverse as the emotion may seem, it serves an adaptive function, Dr. Smith argues in this enjoyable book. It stems from social comparisons, which allow us to assess our talents and determine our status in the social order. The urge to make these comparisons appears hard-wired — studies show that even monkeys and dogs measure themselves against their peers.
(More here.)
The world’s highest-paid athlete began his spectacular downfall by crashing a Cadillac S.U.V. into a fire hydrant and a tree. Initial accounts of Tiger Woods’s 2009 accident reported that his wife had broken the vehicle’s window with a golf club to free him, but when word spread that the couple had been fighting over allegations of his infidelity, the smashed window became a metaphor for his shattered reputation.
As the scandal unfolded, the sports celebrity who had built an empire on his image as an upstanding family man was revealed as a glutton for extramarital sex and an author of tawdry texts to mistresses and paid escorts. Almost overnight, Mr. Woods became a target of ridicule, not to mention a website and a Twitter account with the sole purpose of propagating jokes about him.
The wicked delight over that turn of events has a German name so apt we’ve adopted it in English. Schadenfreude, or “harm-joy,” is the pleasure derived from another’s misfortune, and Richard H. Smith, a University of Kentucky psychology professor, has built a career around studying it and other social emotions. He previously edited an anthology about envy, a close sibling to schadenfreude.
As perverse as the emotion may seem, it serves an adaptive function, Dr. Smith argues in this enjoyable book. It stems from social comparisons, which allow us to assess our talents and determine our status in the social order. The urge to make these comparisons appears hard-wired — studies show that even monkeys and dogs measure themselves against their peers.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
The NYT's does not speak for all, more than one conservative expressed sorrow over the loss of another intact family.
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