Humanizing outgroups does not lead to stress but to Schadenfreude

Leyens, Jacques-Philippe;de Renesse, Eugénie;Collange, Julie;Cortes, Brezo Pozo
(2014) T P M. Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology — Vol. 21, n° 3, p. 341-348 (2014)

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  • Leyens, Jacques-PhilippeUCLouvain
    Author
  • de Renesse, EugénieUCLouvain
    Author
  • Collange, JulieUCLouvain
    Author
  • Cortes, Brezo Pozo
    Author
Abstract
In the present set of studies, we speculated that attributions of uniquely human emotions to ingroup and outgroup members would create an emotional burden that would reduce people's well-being. This hypothesis proved to be incorrect. In fact, the more uniquely human negative emotions participants attributed to the outgroup, the better they felt. The contrary happened for positive uniquely human emotions: the more positive attributions to the outgroup, the worse participants felt. No such effect was obtained on the ingroup or when non-uniquely human emotions were at stakes. We discuss our findings in the light of the literature on Schadenfreude.
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Leyens, J.-P., de Renesse, E., Collange, J., & Cortes, B. P. (2014). Humanizing outgroups does not lead to stress but to Schadenfreude. T P M. Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 21(3), 341-348. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM21.3.8 (Original work published 2014)