This little shameful pleasure in the face of someone’s misfortunes is as old as humanity. If the concept of Schadenfreude is little known in France, then let’s talk about malignant joy …

From the German Schaden ”, the damage, and“ Freude ”, the joy or“ the misfortune of some makes the happiness of others ”. Two contradictory terms for an emotion that does not belong to the social norm. The broad spectrum of human affect includes counterempathic emotions, complex physiological and neurocognitive states that contradict the naive view of human empathy.

“It is not enough to be happy, it is also necessary that the others are unhappy (Pierre Desproges). Who hasn’t laughed when they see a person stumble? Schadenfreude is an emotional state characterized by pleasure in the face of someone else’s unhappiness. See a celebrity’s career crumble, a particularly noxious criminal jailed or witness the defeat of a rival sports team, or even clap when a politician searches for his glasses that are on his nose. it is not mockery but to experience a kind of joy at the misfortune of the other. A socially undesirable emotion. Her misfortunes make her less enviable, and we are revalued by her loss of status.

For some people, behind this complex emotion hides a search for justice, to know if the person who failed deserved his misfortune. Still others believe that it is about envying someone that makes us want to be unhappy. Schadenfreude has been of interest to a good number of scientists since the 90s and, with the development of cerebral imaging which makes it possible to detect it, studies are multiplying.

Philosophers throughout the ages have questioned the nature of schadenfreude. Aristotle already evoked “the epichairekakia”, a word which could be translated literally as “the joy born of the evil”. Schopenhauer described Schadenfreude as one of the most obscure expressions of human emotionality. RC Trench, a XNUMXth century British archbishop, wrote that even having a word for such a damnable emotion was proof of the corruption of a culture.

But scientists who study Schadenfreude have a more charitable view. Despicable as schadenfreude may sound, they say, we are programmed to feel it. As Professor Smith, the American psychologist specializing in this dark side, said: “it is human nature”. Drawing inspiration from evolutionary biology and psychology, researchers studied Schadenfreude from a clinical perspective to try to understand why people cannot help but feel an emotion for the disaster and misfortune of others and recognized by all as despicable.

A large number of studies are based on social comparison theory and the importance given to extrinsic attributes like fame, power or money only reinforces it. Schadenfreude has also been associated with low self-esteem. Indeed, researchers have found that people with low self-esteem are more likely to experience this pleasure of unhappiness.

A team of psychologists from Emory University in Atlanta in the United States began with the observation that there was no definition, strictly speaking, of the term “schadenfreude” and therefore sought to understand it, to explain it and to understand it. study it at best. The group of scientists therefore sought to bring all of these definitions together under one concept. After analyzing various studies proving that Schadenfreude was an emotion integrated into our behavior since our early childhood, it was demonstrated in 2 year olds, they estimated that what was common to all the reactions was dehumanization, the seeing a person as less human than oneself. This dehumanization of another person or of another group makes it possible to feel joy in the face of the failure of that same person or this same group. The study also suggests that the more a person empathizes with another, the less likely they are to experience the “schadenfreude” emotion when that person is in pain.

If a mishap happens to someone we don’t like or who behaved badly with us, the sensation would be related to a feeling of restoring the natural order, somehow restoring balance.

For Australian researcher Norman Feather of Flinders University in Adelaide and other psychologists, Schadenfreude’s key is not envy, but resentment. They base their work on what is called the theory of social comparison. A domain based on a simple premise: humans do not evaluate themselves so much by objective criteria as by comparison with the people around them. If a mishap happens to someone we don’t like or who behaved badly with us, the sensation would be related to a feeling of restoring the natural order, somehow restoring balance. In reality, this reaction is natural: the body secreting dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to reward, pleasure, seeing an unpleasant person suffer, is a reward.

But, the human being is capable of both compassion and Schadenfreude, the latter thus simply marking the limit, moving, which separates our egoistic instincts from our social self, under control.