

This is similar to "begrudgery", the resentment or envy of the success of a peer. Tall poppy syndrome is a cultural phenomenon where people of high status are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticized because they have been classified as better than their peers. There are other ways to express the concept in English.Įpicaricacy is a seldom-used direct equivalent, borrowed from Greek epichairekakia (ἐπιχαιρεκακία, first attested in Aristotle ) from ἐπί epi 'upon', χαρά chara 'joy', and κακόν kakon 'evil'. Schadenfreude has equivalents in many other languages (such as: in Dutch leedvermaak and Swedish skadeglädje code: swe promoted to code: sv ), but no commonly-used precise English single-word equivalent. Schadenfreude is experienced here because it makes people feel that fairness has been restored for a previously un-punished wrong, and is a type of moral emotion. It is the pleasure associated with seeing a "bad" person being harmed or receiving retribution.

Specifically, for someone with high self-esteem, seeing another person fail may still bring them a small (but effectively negligible) surge of confidence because the observer's high self-esteem significantly lowers the threat they believe the visibly-failing human poses to their status or identity. It is hypothesized that this inverse relationship is mediated through the human psychological inclination to define and protect their self- and in-group- identity or self-conception. Self-esteem has a negative relationship with the frequency and intensity of schadenfreude experienced by an individual individuals with lower self-esteem tend to experience schadenfreude more frequently and intensely.

Researchers have found that there are three driving forces behind schadenfreude – aggression, rivalry, and justice. Leipzig 1750.Īlthough common nouns normally are not capitalised in English, schadenfreude sometimes is capitalised following the German convention. The earliest seems to be Christoph Starke, Synopsis bibliothecae exegeticae in Vetus Testamentum. In German, it was first attested in the 1740s. The German word was first mentioned in English texts in 18, and first used in English running text in 1895. It is a compound of Schaden ("damage/harm") and Freude ("joy"). Schadenfreude is a term borrowed from German. Schadenfreude has been detected in children as young as 24 months and may be an important social emotion establishing " inequity aversion". It is a borrowed word from German, with no direct translation, that originated in the 18th century. 'harm-joy') is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. Schadenfreude ( / ˈ ʃ ɑː d ən f r ɔɪ d ə/ German: ( listen) lit.
