Description
While schadenfreude – the pleasure of the misfortune of another person – is generally considered to be a unipolar construct, some theories propose different subforms of schadenfreude that are based on distinct concerns, such as justice and rivalry schadenfreude (Wang et al., 2019). Especially in the school context, where competition and social comparisons are common, it is reasonable to assume that students are provided with ample opportunities to experience different forms of schadenfreude. We, therefore, conducted a qualitative interview study with students to further explore the nature of this phenomenon and we found evidence for five distinct subforms of schadenfreude. Based on these five subforms we then developed a novel schadenfreude scale. The present study used a sample of 1884 Austrian secondary school students (51.3% female, 0.7% diverse, agemean=14.1) to investigate the structure of schadenfreude utilizing this scale. We calculated 1) a g-factor model, 2) a correlated factor model with three factors, 3) a correlated factor model with five factors, and a 4) higher-order factor model with five factors and compared their model fit indices. Preliminary results suggest that schadenfreude should be considered a multidimensional construct with five separate subforms.| Period | 29 Aug 2024 |
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| Event title | International Conference on Motivation & Emotion 2024 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Bern, SwitzerlandShow on map |