CAREER: Understanding the Role of "Schadenfreude" in Intergroup Conflict

People readily organize themselves into social groups because groups serve an important function. Yet, people sometimes struggle with feeling empathy for members of other groups. Empathy is part of the process that explains why people engage in helpful and cooperative behavior. This project focuses on a different and less understood social emotion called schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is when people feel good at another person's pain. It is especially likely to occur when group dynamics are competitive. This project develops the idea that schadenfreude is a significant part of group processes. This project investigates the importance of schadenfreude to advance basic understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie schadenfreude. One set of studies tests whether empathy and schadenfreude both require the same cognitive components, such as perspective taking. A second set of studies assesses the importance of outside conditions in feeling schadenfreude. A final set of studies examines the connection between schadenfreude and people’s intentions and behaviors. A strong emphasis of the project is the integration of research and education, including training the next generation of scientists to create opportunities everywhere and growing STEM talent. The project also includes a proactive plan for disseminating research to interdisciplinary communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.