The Relationship Between Jealousy And Gloating And Its Influencing Factors

As "an unfortunate facet of human nature", envy is an irrational, unpleasant feeling, schadenfreude is called "a malicious pleasure", which is a rewarding feeling derived from another’s misfortune. They have been concerned by researchers for a long time, but the relationship between the two is still at an early stage. Previous studies have found that envy can predict schadenfreude. However, recently researchers have raised the question that there are other factors rather than envy. Consequently, this study intends to see about the connection between envy and schadenfreude, and then explore the factors which will affect them.This study uses scene-evoked emotion method, mainly adopts questionnaire and experimental methods.144students in three universities (including University and Master Graduates) are selected as subjects. This study systematically investigates the connection between envy and schadenfreude, and the effect which implicit self-esteem and human-relations and emotional values make on them.Study I uses scene-evoked method and Implicit Association Test (GNAT paradigm), firstly validated the emotion-induced, then investigated the gender differences on the explicit and implicit levels of envy, and then the connection between envy and schadenfreude.Study II uses Implicit Association Test (IAT paradigm) and questionnaire method, explore the effect which implicit self-esteem and human-relations and emotional values have on the connection between envy and schadenfreude.The results show that envy can positively predict schadenfreude, with the higher the level of envy, schadenfreude is the stronger. Regardless of the level of envy, there is no gender differences. In the patterns of gender roles, both males and females tend to be androgynous, and it is accounted for the largest proportion. Implicit self-esteem has no effect on the connection between envy and schadenfreude. Human-relations and emotional values has effects. When misfortune occurs to others, individuals who have high-level of envy and low-level of Human-relations and emotional values will experience the most intense of schadenfreude; in contrast, individuals who have low-level of envy and high-level of Human-relations and emotional values will experience the least intense of schadenfreude.