Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff works dot com where
Speaker 1: smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, what
Speaker 1: is schadenfreude? Schadenfreude is one of those words that you
Speaker 1: hear about once a month, and because it's a German
Speaker 1: word and it sounds kind of funny, you may be
Speaker 1: wondering what it actually means and how it made its
Speaker 1: way into the English language. If you look the word
Speaker 1: up in the dictionary, the definition goes like this, It's
Speaker 1: satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune. There are
Speaker 1: lots of examples of schadenfreude on the web, in particular.
Speaker 1: For example, the popular site fail blog is one way
Speaker 1: of experiencing schadenfreude. You get to see other people have
Speaker 1: accidents or other kinds of failures, and apparently this is
Speaker 1: incredibly popular because it's one of the most subscribe to
Speaker 1: and watch channels on YouTube. Chan Freuda is different from
Speaker 1: sadistic pleasure, where the person is actually causing the misfortune
Speaker 1: through cruelty. Sadism is defined as any enjoyment in being cruel.
Speaker 1: The person experiencing schadenfreuda plays no role in causing the misfortune.
Speaker 1: He she is simply the observer. The alternative to schadenfreuda,
Speaker 1: of course, would be compassion, which is defined as a
Speaker 1: feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who's stricken
Speaker 1: by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
Speaker 1: So why do we get pleasure out of another person's pain?
Speaker 1: Scientific American recently took a look at the whole phenomenon
Speaker 1: of schadenfreude, and it seems like it's wired into the
Speaker 1: human brain through the reward center. In the article that
Speaker 1: Scientific American wrote, they say scientists who study schadenfreuda are
Speaker 1: learning that this secret happiness that another person's loss has
Speaker 1: biological or pinnings. The feeling registers in the brain as
Speaker 1: a distinct form of pleasure, a satisfaction comparable to that
Speaker 1: of eating a good meal. Schan Freuda does not seem
Speaker 1: to be a particularly endearing feature of the human brain.
Speaker 1: The article spirals downward from there, pointing out that people
Speaker 1: in political parties can as a group, experience glee when
Speaker 1: bad things happen to the opposition party or can be
Speaker 1: pinned onto the other party. People group by race can
Speaker 1: use schadenfreude to encourage prejudice against people of other races,
Speaker 1: and in some cases, schadenfreude can morph into sadism. If
Speaker 1: you feel good at another's misfortune, why not cause more
Speaker 1: misfortune for them yourself? What can you do to avoid
Speaker 1: this process? The article suggests recognizing schadenfreud as it happens,
Speaker 1: perhaps even discussing it and its effects with others, in
Speaker 1: order to inoculate yourself against the more deleterious effects if
Speaker 1: it were to escalate. As the article puts it, this
Speaker 1: may help to avoid a slippery slope towards sadism, or
Speaker 1: you could work the other angle. Ramp up compassion when
Speaker 1: you feel schadenfreud is starting to take effect. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, does that how
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