The Impact Of Self-Affirmation On Schadenfreude At Out-Group

Schadenfreude, pleasure at the misfortunes of others, is one of most malicious emotion, which happen against relations between two people or two groups. It is meaningful to find an effective way to buffer it. Frijda in his book—"The Laws of Emotion" proposed that another’s misfortune can elicit schadenfreude because it satisfies an important concern of the schadenfroh person. In present mainstream account, misfortunes happening to others provide an opportunity to protect or to enhance one’s self-view and therefore is one of the underlying motives for the experience of interpersonal or intergroup schadenfreude. However, according to self-affirmation theory, self-affirmation to provide extra self-enhancement or protection should reduce people’s need to use others’ misfortunes to restore their global sense of self-integrity. Present research aimed to examine the impact of self-affirmation on schadenfreude at another group, and to find an effective method to attenuate it.Japan is defined as the out-group in Study1.145college students (98females) who participated in this study were randomly assigned to self-affirmation, group-affirmation and no affirmation control condition. In the self-affirmation condition, participants were asked to choose the most important value to themselves from a list of11values, and at least elaborated on two reasons or examples; In the group-affirmation condition, participants were instructed to choose the most important value to China from a list of11values, and also at least elaborated on two reasons or examples; In no affirmation control condition, participants were asked to describe an ordinary day in their college life. As a result, participants in the self-affirmation condition reported less schadenfreude than did participants in group-affirmation condition as well as control condition, however similar effect was not found in the negative emotion level. It is suggested that self-affirmation effect on schadenfreude were not for the negative emotion’s mediation.Study2used hot news about America as experiment materials to test conclusions stability of study1.168college students (112females) participated. Similar to study1, participants in the self-affirmation condition reported lower level of schadenfreude than did participants in group-affirmation condition as well as control condition.In study3, self-affirmation was divided into two parts on the basis of different affirmed content.317participants (198females) were randomly assigned to one of the conditions of a3(self-affirmation: independent self-affirmation vs. Interdependent self-affirmation vs. no affirmation) x2(self construal:independent self construal vs. Interdependent construal) between-subjects design. Consequently, independent self-affirmation resulted in lower level of schadenfreude for independent participants than interdependent propensity participants; while, interdependent propensity participants in the interdependent self-affirmation condition reported less schadenfreude than did participants in independent self-affirmation condition.Above all, it is suggested that affirming one’s important values could provide individuals extra "positive energy", to protect or enhance one’s self-view, and therefore lead lower underlying motives of schadenfreude. Affirming one’s most concern which is consistent to their self construal level may lead to perfect effect.