62 - Schadenfreude: Is it ok to feel like this?

Two Shrinks Pod

This week, in the wake of President Trump being diagnosed with COVID-19, the world has been going through a collective emotional experience. People who ordinarily wouldn’t relish in the misfortunes of others are feeling a pleasurable twinge of schadenfreude. We noticed people talking about how guilty they’ve felt so we wanted to pull apart this complex emotion in the two shrinks way: What is it? Why do we experience it? And is it really ok to feel like this?

As always, to wrap up we finish with Things We Came Across: why narcissists aren’t wearing masks and odd things that have happened in interviews.

We learnt about schadenfreude in:

• Schadenfreude: Understanding Pleasure at the Misfortune of Others: www.cambridge.org/9781107017504

• The relationship between schadenfreude & sadism: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886916300071

• Schadenfreude & ingroup outgroup bias:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/research/publications/articles/2017_Lehr_GPIR.pdf

• Integrating multiple perspectives on schadenfreude: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11031-012-9331-4

TWCA

Why narcissists aren’t wearing masks & how to approach them: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/narcissism-mask-covid-psychology/2020/09/25/d3de1b32-fe9c-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html