Free EVILICIOUS: Cruelty = Desire + Denial by Marc Hauser

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    I have explained that our desire to see others suffer can grow, especially when the desire is not satisfied by feeling good. Carlsmith’s work on revenge and punishment, discussed earlier, provides an example: when people punish wrongdoers they expect to feel better, but ruminating on the experience causes them to feel worse and seek greater satisfaction. This cycle can drive a greater and greater desire to hurt others. Cycles such as these are often ignited and fueled by ideology, including especially differences in our perception of who is like us and who isn’t. This distinction, as we learned earlier, guides children’s sense of fairness, causing them to favor equity with in-group members and inequity among out-group members. Later in life, religious and political beliefs further fortify our favoritism toward in-group members, often leading to seemingly irrational desires to see those not like us suffer.
    The psychologist Richard Smith explored whether an individual’s political convictions influenced the intensity of schadenfreude when witnessing a member of another party suffer, including cases where society at large also suffers. Smith initiated the study prior to the US Presidential elections in 2004 involving Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry; during this period, the Republicans controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Each subject — all college undergraduates — provided information about party affiliation and strength of support for the policies and beliefs of their party. Next, each subject read and provided reactions to short newspaper articles describing tragicomic moments for the two candidates, one in which Bush fell off a bicycle he was riding, and the other involving Kerry wearing a bizarre space outfit during a visit to NASA. Last, subjects read and reacted to an article describing job losses and the economic downturn facing the nation — an article meant to capture an objective cost to all members of society, irrespective of party affiliation.
    Unsurprisingly, Democrats expressed more pleasure from reading about Bush’s bicycle accident, whereas Republicans were more joyful over Kerry’s bizarre space suit. Surprisingly, Democrats also expressed pleasure reading about the economic downturn and more pleasure than the Republicans who were more likely to express negative feelings about this situation. Thus, despite the fact that the economic downturn hurt everyone, the Democrats expressed pleasure over the added damage this inflicted on the Republicans — whom they held responsible — and conversely, the added benefit it brought to the Democrats who could wag their fingers. The Democrats’ focus on the Republicans’ fall utterly trumped the economic crash that impacted all US citizens, irrespective of party affiliation.
    In a second study, Smith found that Democrats experienced more schadenfreude than Republicans over the number of casualties reported out of the Iraq war, even though Iraqis were certainly not preferentially targeting Republicans. The pleasure they experienced — seemingly irrational given the atrocities of war — was entirely driven by the fact that this was a war sponsored by a Republican government, and thus, the fatalities could be blamed on the Republicans. From a Democrat’s perspective, even though everyone loses when soldiers die in war, it is a bigger loss for Republicans and thus, a bigger gain for Democrats. With schadenfreude, as with envy, it is all about comparison shopping. It is all about satisfying our desires to gain status relative to others, whether the other is a member of another political party, religious organization, or sports team. This can result in highly irrational responses, as desire for personal satisfaction catapults to the top, dominating all other considerations.
    As I mentioned earlier, schadenfreude, like envy, is tied to notions of fairness: we feel good when someone who has more than us suffers a