This video answers the question: Can I review the construct of schadenfreude? Schadenfreude is when somebody takes joy in another's misfortune. It comes from two German words “schaden” (misfortune or harm) and “freude” (joy). A lot of times when we look at the research literature, we see that schadenfreude is generally considered harmful, especially if it tends to occur repeatedly. It has an antisocial component and it's often thought of as morally questionable. Schadenfreude also exists on a personal and a social level.
I've heard that people consider envy the opposite of schadenfreude, but actually that's not true. There's another term freudenfreude, which is when you support the success of other people. It’s when you feel joy because other people have success. That's really the opposite of envy. Just because schadenfreude isn't the opposite of envy, doesn't mean it doesn't have a relationship with envy. I think it's actually aligned with envy. In one sense, schadenfreude really satisfies envy. If you feel a negative feeling because somebody else has success, then something bad happens to them, and you feel joy because of that misfortune, that satisfies the envy. That kind of takes care of the envy feeling and replaces the negative feeling of envy with the positive feeling of schadenfreude.
