The mediating role of schadenfreude between malicious envy and bullying in school

Bullying in school is a multidetermined phenomenon that becomes even more complex with the increasing relevance of social status at the onset of middle adolescence. This age - between 13 and 17 - is characterized by substantial social, emotional, and cognitive developments, implicating two negative social emotions in bullying behavior: envy and schadenfreude. Envy can be distinguished between benign envy, which involves improvement motivation, and malicious envy that leads to hostile feelings towards the envied person. Schadenfreude is defined as joy over the downfall of a rival. We propose that malicious envy is positively and benign envy negatively linked to bullying perpetration and that both effects are mediated by schadenfreude. In a preregistered study with a sample of n = 2,172 secondary school students, we collected data across two waves to test this proposed mediation model. Neither malicious nor benign envy is directly related to bullying; however, the effect of malicious envy on bullying perpetration is fully mediated by schadenfreude. Exploratory analyses suggest that these pathways differ by gender, indicating that in girls, malicious envy only affects bullying through schadenfreude, whereas in boys, bullying is likely influenced through other processes.