Comments | audnauseam: This proves it

audnauseam

This proves it

Jan 22, 2006 20:02

Extra! Extra! Men are unsympathetic and delight in other people's suffering!

Well, not quite that. But scientists have discovered real neurological evidence of schadenfreude - and guess what? Men are more likely to feel it. Although I know an awful lot of sopranos who prove the exception to the rule.

Comments 5

musicpsych January 23 2006, 06:37:41 UTC

Yeah, I've never denied it.

so_il_singer January 23 2006, 14:33:34 UTC

Heh. Proof positive in what I've always said: men are basically insecure children who need mommy. It never changes.

Where's my bottle????

ex_requiella957 January 25 2006, 02:54:29 UTC

Very interesting. Left unanswered of course is the question of whether the response difference is innate or learned. The researcher stated that "it is possible the experimental design favored men, as there was a physical rather than psychological or financial threat involved." I'd be curious to see what would happen if one of these different types of threat was studied. If the response difference flip-flopped, that would at least hint at (but not prove) socialization as the culprit.

Even better, here's a quick study idea:

Have men and women participants, where each participant imagines their partner becoming involved with someone else. But, there are two conditions: The partner either has sex with someone else or develops an emotional intimacy with someone else. Then, everyone is asked to imagine themselves getting revenge. I bet you'd see a gender breakdown whereby men would experience more schadenfreude in the sexual intimacy condition and women would experience more schadenfreude in the emotional intimacy condition.

audnauseam January 25 2006, 04:03:48 UTC

I don't know if that's really true. I guess in very general terms, but there are so many people out there with weird sexual tastes, swingers, etc, that I wouldn't be surprised to see no real trend there.

ex_requiella957 January 26 2006, 01:48:13 UTC

It's an empirical question, to be sure. My rationale for the hypothesis is existing research showing that men are on average more threatened by sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity, while for women it's just the opposite.