When this happens, our promiscuous brain has worked its combinatorial magic, causing us to feel good

When this happens, our promiscuous brain has worked its combinatorial magic, causing us to feel good when we witness someone else’s misfortune. Schadenfreude, like envy, causes us to self-evaluate, looking inside of ourselves to assess our net worth relative to others. We know from a large body of studies, several carried out by the American social psychologist Roy Baumeister, that when an individual’s sense of self-worth is threatened, especially those individuals with more narcissistic and overly confident personalities, aggression often follows. The more personally threatened we feel, the more pleasure we should feel when someone else suffers. The Dutch psychologist Wilco van Dijk tested this idea with two simple experiments. In both experiments, subjects filled out a questionnaire that they believed evaluated their intellectual strengths. Upon completion and scoring of the questionnaire, some were told that they had utterly flopped, scoring in the lowest 10% of all subjects, while others were told that they performed brilliantly, scoring in the upper 10%. Next, all subjects read a scenario in which someone suffers a misfortune. For example, in one scenario, a student rents an expensive car to show off at a party, but then drives the car into a river, not only damaging the car but requiring the fire department to tow it out. Those whose sense of self-worth was threatened by the abominable test score were more likely to say that they felt good about the misfortune, including smirks and laughter in response to the show off who submerged his rented car. These results powerfully show that schadenfreude serves the beneficial function of hoisting our own self- worth. When our self-worth has been challenged, for whatever reason, we feel better knowing that someone else is worse off, regardless of context or direct relevance. Our desire to see others suffer so that we may feel better can escalate to absurd levels, especially when it is fueled by ideology. Beliefs can blind us to the cost-benefit analysis, motivating us to see harm done to those outside of our inner sanctum even if it hurts us as well. Religious and political ideologies are two of the hotspots that can drive entirely irrational desires and absurd attributions. The American psychologist Richard Smith explored whether an individual’s political convictions influenced the intensity of schadenfreude when witnessing a member of another party suffer, including cases where society at large also suffers. Smith initiated the study prior to the US Presidential elections in 2004 involving Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry; during this period, the Republicans controlled both executive branches of the government. Each subject — all college undergraduates — provided information about party affiliation and strength of support for the policies and beliefs of their party. Next, every subject read and provided reactions to short newspaper articles describing tragicomic moments for the two candidates, one in which Bush fell off his bicycle while riding, and the other involving Kerry wearing a bizarre space outfit during a visit to NASA. Last, subjects read and reacted to an article describing job losses and the economic downturn facing the nation — an article meant to capture an objective cost to all members of society, irrespective of party affiliation. Hauser Chapter 2. Runaway desire 74 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012820