The Joy of Pain Read online

  If you follow golf, you have probably noticed the difference in both players’ and spectators’ reactions to Ryder Cup matches compared to regular tournaments. The Ryder Cup is a biennial, three-day event that pits the United States against Europe in a series of competitions between players from each team. As sports go, golf is subdued. Player and spectator norms dictate proper decorum and sportsmanship. The bouncy, Gangnam Style dance that Korean golfer James Hahn displayed after sinking a long birdie putt during the final round of the Phoenix Open in February of 2013 was memorable in part because it was so unprecedented.24 In regular tournaments, spectators display approval at every good shot made and collective groans at every shot missed. On the back of tickets for one major tournament, the Masters, a sentence reads: “Applauding mistakes is no part of the game of golf and we hope that visitors to the Masters will henceforth observe the etiquette and retain their reputation as among the most knowledgeable and courteous of golfing spectators.”25 Players themselves may be elated if a competitor chokes, but we wouldn’t know this from their inscrutable demeanors. However, these norms do not apply quite so consistently for the Ryder Cup matches, especially in recent years.

  The 1999 Ryder Cup involved an improbable comeback victory for the United States team.26 As the drama unfolded, the emotions of both players and spectators intensified and erupted openly. The competition came down to a final pairing between American Justin Leonard and Spaniard José María Olazábal. There were two holes to go (the 17th and 18th), and all Leonard had to do to ensure victory for the U.S. team was to win one of the holes or tie both. On the 17th hole, both golfers made the green on their second shots. Leonard’s ball was more than 40 feet away, a very difficult putt. Olazábal’s was just over 20 feet away: tough but makeable. Leonard putted first and holed it! Even though Olazábal had yet to putt (and, importantly, making it would have extended the match), American players, some fans, and even wives rushed onto the green in celebration. The green was cleared for Olazábal to putt, but he missed. There was celebration over this too! So much for the gentleman’s game of golf when play is intergroup.27

  SCHADENFREUDE AND THE BLOOD SPORT OF POLITICS

  There are other arenas in life where partisan instincts carry the day—such as in politics. As in sports, any misfortune befalling an opposing party candidate, from sexual scandal to verbal gaffe, improves the chances of one’s own candidate or party winning. In the heat of political campaigns, particularly as election night approaches, most events are interpreted through their implications for victory or defeat, even if a misfortune creates general negative effects for everyone. For example, dispiriting economic news might seem to have no positive outcomes for anyone, and yet for a challenger trying to defeat an incumbent, an economic downturn might be good news indeed—because the blame goes to the incumbent. The prospect of winning is the outcome that matters most and so the “bad news” creates schadenfreude.28

  The partisan interests driving the emotions of those invested in politics can sometimes be difficult to uncover, however. The political costs of appearing to lack empathy over bad news are great—much more so than in sports. Regardless of who is losing politically, both sides are required to put on a long face, their actual feelings notwithstanding. Yet the suspected inconsistency between actual and presented feelings is probably why politicians and their allies often accuse their opponents of experiencing unseemly joy when negative events bring good political news.29 For example, early in the presidential campaign of 2012, President Barack Obama claimed that Republicans greeted with great enthusiasm the bad news of rising gas prices. They were “licking their chops” over the political opportunity, even though this hurt the average consumer. He added, “Only in politics do people root for bad news.”30 There is little doubt that political motivations can promote schadenfreude, often camouflaged by mock concern. A juicy scandal suffered by a political adversary is an unfailing trigger. But is it actually true that schadenfreude also occurs when the misfortune is general in its negative impact, affecting more than the specific outcomes of a political adversary? I collaborated on a series of studies led by social psychologist David Combs in which we examined this question.31 We assessed participants’ political party affiliations and the intensity of their affiliation. Approximately two months later, just before the 2004 U.S. presidential election and again just before the 2006 midterm elections, we gauged their reactions to news articles entailing misfortunes of two types. Some were partly comic in nature and embarrassing to either the Republican or Democratic Party (e.g., President George W. Bush falling off his bicycle and Senator John Kerry dressed in a comical outfit during a tour at NASA). Others were objectively hurtful to others regardless of political party, yet had implications for the outcome of an upcoming election (a downturn in the economic news and troop deaths in Iraq). We expected that party affiliation would predict the amount of schadenfreude felt by the participants.

  This is exactly what happened. For the comic misfortunes, the results were straightforward. Democrats found the article about President Bush much more humorous than did Republicans and vice versa for the article about Senator Kerry. Echoing the findings for sports, this pattern was stronger for those highly identified with their party and thus more concerned about the outcome of the election. Essentially, the “same” event was seen as either very funny or not depending on the political vantage point.

  But more interesting were the results from the questions about the two “objectively negative” misfortunes. Democrats found both the economic downturn and the troop deaths more pleasing than did Republicans. Once again, this was all the more true for those highly identified with their party and invested in the outcome of the election. Overall, these feelings of pleasure were not extreme. And yet it was true that these objectively negative misfortunes were pleasing to some degree. Because the pleasure increased with strength of identification, it is likely that this pleasure was linked to resulting political gain. I should note that Democrats felt considerable ambivalence about both the economic downturn and the troop deaths. They seemed to welcome the potential political windfall that might follow from each event, yet they still wrestled with the fact that the news was generally bad for almost everyone. By contrast, Republicans reported less overall negative affect as the result of these events. This might be because Republicans were trying to downplay the seriousness of the problem so that they would have less reason to feel troubled by bad things brought about by their party.

  In our initial studies, we did not find that Republicans also experienced schadenfreude over an objectively negative event. This was a quirk of the period when we ran these studies, a period when scandals were the province of Republicans, not Democrats. Bad news on the economic or military front almost always had negative implications for Republicans, whose party was in power. However, we had no reason to believe that political schadenfreude was only something Democrats would feel. In another study, we took the liberty of constructing an article that portrayed a negative event that could be pinned on either Democrats or Republicans. The time period for this study was the tail end of the 2008 primary campaign, after both the Democratic candidate, the then Senator Barack Obama, and the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, had earned their respective party nominations. The article claimed that during the previous year the candidate had pushed through legislation that directly led to higher mortgage foreclosures that devastated the fortunes of many homeowners. The article stressed these broad, negative effects. As in the previous studies, we assessed party affiliation and party identification. Again, the pattern of findings was strikingly dependent on which candidate was associated with the misfortune and the participants’ party affiliation and degree of identification with their party.

  As illustrated in Figure 3.1, Republicans were more pleased than Democrats when Obama was the cause of the misfortune. The pattern reversed when McCain had pushed the bad legislation through. Those strongly identified with their party showed the pattern all the
more. Just as in the competitive realm of sports, when it comes to political fortune, people naturally focus on their own party’s success, regardless of how others’ outcomes might be affected. As comedian Stephen Colbert put it during the summer of the 2012 presidential campaign between incumbent President Barack Obama and his challenger, Mitt Romney, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is there’s plenty of bad news, which is great news for Mitt Romney.”32

  Figure 3.1. The role of party affiliation of observer and party of the sufferer on schadenfreude. Schadenfreude in response to a “misfortune” happening to either McCain or Obama depended on party affiliation of observer.

  The influence of group identification on schadenfreude is powerful, but it fits with our inherent social nature. Humans have always lived in groups, and our individual survival has probably been linked with the advantages of being part of a strong group. Group identification is therefore quite automatic and can lead to ingroup favoritism and outgroup antipathy—and schadenfreude when a rival outgroup suffers. Schadenfreude seems the signature emotion in the competitive rough and tumble of sports and politics, where group allegiances are so intense.

  Sometimes sports and politics travel together. Historian Peter Gay grew up in the pre-war Berlin of the 1930s. In his memoir My German Question, he describes what it was like to cope with persecutions that he and his family suffered as Jews until they made their escape on a ship to Cuba in 1939.33 He found refuge from the increasingly vile treatment of the Nazis by immersing himself in sports. He developed passionate attachments to teams and was keenly happy when they did well and miserable when they lost. Also, since he and his father hated the Nazis, they both began identifying with America rather than Germany. By the 1936 Berlin Olympics, they supported “the Americans passionately.”34 They attended most of the events, and their hatred of the Nazis and their love for Americans led to great swings in emotions depending on the outcome of the various games. Gay remembered one event most keenly, the women’s 4 × 100-meter relay, in which the highly favored German team lost because they dropped the relay baton:

  As long as I live I shall hear my father’s voice as he leaped to his feet … “Die Mädchen haben den Stab verloren!,” he shouted, “The girls have dropped the baton!” As Helen Stevens loped to the tape to give the Americans yet another gold medal, the unbeatable models of Nazi womanhood put their arms around each other and cried their German hearts out. … Schadenfreude can be one of the greatest joys in life.35

  Gay is understandably unapologetic about his and his father’s schadenfreude, and, as I will explore in Chapters 5 and 6, the deservingness of a misfortune can go a long way in disconnecting schadenfreude from shame. I am wholly in sync with his experience. I get goosebumps thinking about Jesse Owens defeating the German sprinters as Hitler watched from his stadium seat. Aryan superiority indeed!

  Unfortunately, what we see in sports and politics can bring about another sort of chill. The emotions often produced by intergroup relations may also encourage extreme forms of conflict, such as ethnic and religious strife and wars between nations. In this sense, schadenfreude, as natural as it is to feel, may be a kind of gateway drug, closing the door on compassion and encouraging darker emotions and actions. Later, in Chapter 10, I venture into this territory.

  CHAPTER 4

  SELF AND OTHER

  We know how little it matters to us whether some man, a man taken at large and in the abstract, prove a failure or succeed in life,—he may be hanged for aught we care,—but we know the utter momentousness and terribleness of the alternative when the man is the one whose name we ourselves bear. I must not be a failure, is the very loudest of the voices that clamor in each of our breasts: let fail who may, I at least must succeed.

  — WILLIAM JAMES1

  In all Distresses of our Friends

  We first consult our private Ends,

  While Nature kindly bent to ease us,

  Points out some Circumstance to please us.

  — JONATHAN SWIFT2

  And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant.

  — GEORGE ORWELL3

  Suppose you are a woman secretly in love with a man, and you are competing for his love with a good friend of yours. The problem for you is that your friend has many remarkable qualities that make her appealing to this man. But you find out that she has just been fired from the newspaper where she works for plagiarizing someone else’s work. How would you feel? Almost certainly you would express public concern for your friend: “Too bad about Betty losing her job. I feel terrible for her.”

  This is what you are “supposed” to feel, and expressing concern puts you in a flattering light. After all, she is a good friend, and the misfortunes of friends should cause us to feel bad. Part of you undoubtedly does feel bad for her, but you might also add, “Surprising about what Betty did. I guess it’s hard to blame the newspaper. She probably needs therapy.”

  These mild digs at your friend’s character and mental health would be a telltale sign that another part of you feels pleased. There might be a touch of the crocodile, crying while eating its victim. Her downfall transforms her from an attractive rival into someone tarnished. Perhaps the critical detail is exactly that Betty is now tarnished, a decidedly promising development for you on the romantic front. You might emphasize in your mind the aspect of your feelings that registers concern for her. Perhaps you will convince yourself that compassion is what you are only feeling. But in a corner of your being, you may be jumping for joy. The prospect of obtaining your heart’s desire may just be the stronger source of your emotions.

  Clearly, feeling pleasure because of a friend’s troubles leads us into disturbing psychological and moral terrain. We are loath to admit that the primary wellspring of our emotions can be raw and narrow self-interest, especially if a friend’s well-being is involved. To feel even a momentary secret joy sullies the way we view ourselves. Perhaps we may succeed in falsely convincing the people around us, as well as ourselves, that our motives and the emotions that rest on them are largely selfless. But, in so doing, we may be “strangers to ourselves,” as Nietzsche wrote.4 In the mating game, as in many other competitive arenas of life, self-serving feelings can often go strongly with the grain and overrule our altruistic impulses. The weather vane predicting our stronger emotions in these cases points to the question, “What is in it for me?”

  BORN TO BE GOOD OR BAD

  In an early episode of The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob frames Krusty the Clown for a convenience store robbery and takes over Krusty’s show. Sideshow, who fancies himself as far more talented and cultured than Krusty, has been frustrated by playing the minor, sidekick role in what he thinks of as Krusty’s crassly produced show. He likes that Krusty is behind bars and enjoys running the show his own way, reading aloud classic literature, making references to Susan Sontag, and singing songs by Cole Porter. After one of his shows, as he walks with a group of toadying staff members, he claims to be feeling sorry for Krusty. He bites his finger and sobs, but after he enters his dressing room and closes the door, his public sobs are transformed into a private, devilish cackle. He has what he wants, full control and the starring role of the show, and he is happy that this came through Krusty’s downfall.

  Schadenfreude should at least flavor our emotions to the extent that we gain from another person’s misfortune, even if empathy arises as well. But Sideshow is a caricature of someone motivated only by self-interest and narrow personal gain; his reaction is pleasure unblended with pity. More typically, our natural tendencies tug us in at least two directions: one toward narrow self-interest and schadenfreude, the other toward the interests of others and empathy. Neither direction fully captures human nature.

  In the history of psychology, it would be hard to think of someone who had a more razor-sharp and even-handed understanding of human motivation than Harvard psychologist
and philosopher William James. Although his landmark work, The Principles of Psychology, was published in 1890, contemporary scholars continue to return to his inspired characterizations of how the human mind works. Here is how James captures the two competing sides of human nature:

  In many respects man is the most ruthlessly ferocious of beasts. As with all gregarious animals, “two souls,” as Faust says, “dwell with-in his breast,” the one of sociability and helpfulness, the other of jealousy and antagonism to his mates. Though in a general way he cannot live without them, yet, as regards to certain individuals, it often falls out that he cannot live with them either.5

  As contemporary Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner argues, we are neither born to be “good” nor born to be “bad”; we are born to be “good or bad.”6 It is a false dichotomy.

  Again, if another person suffers a misfortune that leads to our gain, our feelings usually will be mixed, as the studies on political schadenfreude described in Chapter 3 show. And our natural feelings of empathy are likely to be reinforced by cultural norms prescribing this empathy and censuring displays of pleasure over others’ suffering. Any secret joys we feel when our rivals lose probably would make most of us feel a little guilty and ashamed.