Why We Feel Schadenfreude When Others Fail: The Psychology

Schadenfreude is the pleasure or satisfaction we sometimes feel when another person experiences a setback. You might notice it when a rival team loses, an arrogant coworker is embarrassed, or someone who seemed to gain an unfair advantage finally faces consequences. The German word combines ideas of harm and joy; in psychology it describes an emotional reaction, not necessarily an intention to hurt anyone.

Why does it happen? Research repeatedly points to perceived deservingness, social comparison and rivalry, and identification with competing groups. These motives can overlap. A fleeting feeling does not, on its own, establish cruelty, a personality disorder, or a lack of empathy. The important questions are what a person believes happened, whom they are comparing themselves with, and how they act afterward.

What does schadenfreude mean in psychology?

Schadenfreude is more specific than laughing at a joke. The source of satisfaction is another person’s misfortune or loss. It can remain private, and its strength varies with the perceived fairness of the outcome, the relationship between the observer and the target, and the seriousness of the event. Experiencing it after a minor sports defeat is not the same as celebrating someone’s serious injury.

A 2019 conceptual review by Wang, Lilienfeld and Rochat outlined three interconnected motivational pathways: aggression, rivalry, and justice. The authors offered a theoretical model informed by different bodies of research, not a diagnostic classification that must apply in fixed proportions to every person.

Why can another person’s failure feel satisfying?

1. Perceived justice and deservingness

When someone seems to have benefited from cheating, hypocrisy, or abuse of power, their setback may be appraised as a restoration of fairness. Satisfaction can come from the belief that consequences have caught up with them rather than from suffering alone. Yet believing that somebody deserves a setback does not prove that the harm is justified. The judgment may be based on rumor, partial information, or bias.

In an experiment published online in July 2025, 247 participants responded more strongly with schadenfreude toward targets described as having obtained undeserved success than toward targets whose success was deserved. The study found no significant main effect of a mortality-salience manipulation in its tested design. It is evidence about the experimental scenarios, not a universal estimate of how often people feel the emotion.

2. Envy and upward social comparison

A highly successful person can become an uncomfortable reference point for our own progress. Their failure may momentarily reduce the perceived gap between us, offering relief without changing our actual situation. This is one reason schadenfreude can feel rewarding even when the observer receives no material benefit.

Not all envy works the same way. Benign envy can motivate self-improvement, while malicious envy is more closely associated with wishing for another person’s advantage to disappear. Research using manipulated scenarios, published online in 2020, found that disliking and perceived deservingness were important predictors and that malicious, rather than benign, envy predicted schadenfreude in the tested conditions.

3. Group rivalry and social identity

Sports fans may welcome a rival team’s defeat even if they know nothing about its individual players. Similar reactions can occur between professional teams or competing organizations. Here the meaning of the event depends partly on who represents “us” and who represents “them.”

A study published in 2024 examined how cooperation, competition and group identity influenced reactions to another person’s misfortune. One experiment included 83 Chinese university students. The findings illuminate particular social situations; they do not justify a claim that every culture or age group responds in the same way.

4. Social exclusion and a sense of vindication

A person who has been deliberately left out of social activities may experience satisfaction when the person responsible later faces embarrassment. Research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2025 explored this pattern and emphasized that perceived unfairness can make a setback appear deserved.

This does not mean exclusion inevitably produces schadenfreude or that revenge is helpful. Anger, hurt, empathy and satisfaction can coexist or change as new facts emerge.

Schadenfreude versus envy, jealousy, gloating and sadism

A central distinction is that schadenfreude can be a passive reaction to an event the observer did not cause, whereas sadistic behavior involves inflicting or perpetuating harm. A 2025 study of measures for the two traits identified overlap but also model-dependent distinctions, so the terms should not be treated as interchangeable.

Is there a schadenfreude center in the brain?

A 2009 Science paper used functional MRI to study envy and schadenfreude. The authors reported changes in brain areas involved in reward processing, including the ventral striatum, during scenarios in which an envied person experienced a setback. The findings helped connect social emotions with broader reward-processing systems.

That does not reveal a single “schadenfreude center,” allow a scan to diagnose an individual, or establish that every instance of pleasure at failure corresponds to a precise dopamine release. Functional MRI measures blood-oxygen-level changes, and interpretations must remain tied to the study design.

What did research published from 2024 to 2026 add?

A 2026 Egyptian study: useful findings, important limits

An open-access paper published on September 18, 2026 in SAGE Open examined schadenfreude among 112 Egyptian professionals working in health, mental health and academic settings. The sample comprised 94 women and 18 men. Researchers explored links between envy, tendencies to gossip, identity styles and group identification using questionnaires and statistical models.

They reported complex associations and potential indirect pathways linking envy, gossip and schadenfreude; some measures of family-group identification appeared to show a protective pattern. However, the study was cross-sectional, based on self-report and nonrepresentative. It cannot establish that gossip causes schadenfreude, that a whole country has a particular level of the emotion, or that one cultural group is more malicious than another.

Does social media amplify schadenfreude?

Social feeds expose people to public failures, celebrity controversies, rival fans and humiliating clips at high speed. A post can combine social comparison, dislike and perceived justice in a single moment. A conceptual review published in 2024 examined how viewers’ appraisal of media characters and events may shape sympathy or schadenfreude.

But this does not mean all social media use causes schadenfreude or that the effect can be predicted from screen time alone. What matters may include the specific content, earlier relationships, group identity and how deserved the outcome seems to the viewer.

Does experiencing schadenfreude make someone a bad person?

Not automatically. Researchers examine schadenfreude as an emotion that can arise in ordinary competitive and social situations. One reaction is not enough to diagnose a personality disorder or to conclude that a person is incapable of compassion. More important behavioral concerns arise when someone repeatedly humiliates others, spreads harmful rumors, or deliberately seeks opportunities to cause distress.

Emotions can also change rapidly. Someone may initially feel vindicated by a rival’s setback and later recognize the consequences for that person’s family or coworkers. Describing the feeling is different from excusing cruelty.

How to respond without turning schadenfreude into harm

1. Name the feeling: notice the reaction without immediately defining your entire character by it.
2. Check the facts: was the target actually responsible for wrongdoing, or is the story incomplete?
3. Separate accountability from suffering: you can support fair consequences without celebrating humiliation.
4. Notice the comparison: if another person’s success unsettles you, identify a goal you can pursue independently.
5. Avoid amplifying humiliation: do not share embarrassing footage simply because it attracts attention.
6. Practice perspective-taking: consider what information you do not have and who else may be affected.
7. Seek professional support if needed: particularly when hostility or urges to harm others persist and affect relationships.

These are reflective, practical suggestions rather than a treatment protocol experimentally established for schadenfreude. If you want to examine your own comparison habits, the Horus Valley social comparison self-reflection quiz offers an educational exercise, not a clinical diagnosis.

Three everyday situations, compared

Frequently asked questions

Is schadenfreude a normal emotion?

It can occur in ordinary social life, especially when a rival faces a setback or the observer believes the outcome is deserved. There is no single scientifically reliable percentage for all people, and an isolated response is not a diagnosis.

Is schadenfreude the same as envy?

No. Envy concerns a valued advantage another person has; schadenfreude concerns enjoyment of their misfortune. They can overlap, but each can occur without the other.

Does schadenfreude prove a lack of empathy?

No. Empathy and schadenfreude can vary with the target, relationship and interpretation of the event. A single reaction cannot establish someone’s general capacity for compassion.

Why is a celebrity downfall sometimes so satisfying?

High status and public attention can intensify comparisons. Some observers also believe a famous person benefited unfairly. Neither perception proves that the person actually deserved harm.

Is schadenfreude a desire for revenge?

Not necessarily. Someone can feel satisfaction about a setback they neither caused nor wanted to repeat. Planning to harm a person is a different behavior.

What about schadenfreude at work?

Organizational rivalry and status comparison may make the emotion more salient. A 2026 scholarly review emphasizes fairness, social identity and work context, while acknowledging limitations in the underlying evidence.

Did a 2026 study show that Egyptians are more schadenfreude-prone?

No. The Egyptian research sampled 112 professionals from selected fields rather than a representative national population. It provides insight into relationships among variables in that sample, not a country ranking.

Bottom line

Schadenfreude is best understood as a context-dependent social emotion shaped by perceived justice, comparison and group rivalry. The distinction between a passing feeling and harmful behavior matters. Research through 2026 has added nuance, but no single brain scan, survey or culture-specific sample can explain everyone. The useful response is to examine what your reaction says about your expectations while avoiding cruelty toward the person who suffered the setback.

Original studies and authoritative research

• Wang, Lilienfeld & Rochat (2019): tripartite motivational account.
• Takahashi et al. (2009): neural correlates of envy and schadenfreude.
• Greenier (2020/2021): disliking, deservingness and envy.
• Sun et al. (2024): cooperation, competition and group identity.
• Suter & Döveling (2024): sympathy and schadenfreude in media reception.
• Mohammadi & Hales (2025): social exclusion and schadenfreude.
• Kaynak & Hasdağ (2025): deservingness experiment.
• Kovalenko, Zein & Nasr (2026): Egyptian professionals, envy and gossip.
• 2026 systematic review of workplace schadenfreude.