The Japanese Society for Cognitive Psychology

There is one emotion called “pleasure-in-others’-misfortune”, which is known as schadenfreude. Previous studies showed connections between schadenfreude and negative emotions, and especially they focused on the schadenfreude that was triggered by their enemies, but little was mentioned about the schadenfreude that was triggered by their friends. The purpose of this study is to explore the factors those would trigger schadenfreude both in friendship and hostile relationship. Four scenarios were prepared for two hundred and two participants (118 females, 84 males) asking about their feeling of schadenfreude and sympathy towards a close friend, an acquaintance, and an enemy. The importance of the scenarios and their personality as self-esteem, narcissism, and inferiority complex were also being questioned. Results showed that males tended to feel more schadenfreude than females especially with friends, and the importance of the misfortune was negatively correlated with people’s schadenfreude in friendship.