Gibt es ein Lachen der Schadenfreude?

Authors

  • Jennifer Hofmann Universität Zürich
  • Willibald Ruch Universität Zürich

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14464/semiotik.v37i1-2.337

Keywords:

laughter, emotion, psychology, types of laughter, Duchenne display, facial expression, humor studies, spiteful laughter

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, authors concerned with Ausdruckspsychologie (“expression psychology”) described the existence of a specific visual and auditory morphological pattern of schadenfreude laughter. They were putting enormous efforts in visual and verbal illustrations of several laughter types, but those ideas have been widely neglected in modern research. Preceding studies on the frequency and intensity of smiling and laughter in 16 positive emotions showed that not only amusement, but also schadenfreude elicited laughter and more intense facial displays of smiling and laughter. Thus, the current study investigated three hypotheses on the facial expression of schadenfreude in 17 recalled schadenfreude events. The results showed that schadenfreude went along with laughter very often (laughter occurred in over 70 % of the recalled schadenfreude memories). The facial expressions of smiling and laughter in schadenfreude were frequently accompanied by markers of display regulation and dampening. Therefore, the joyful expression of schadenfreude in the face (Duchenne display) is often distorted by regulation or dampening actions. This is probably due to the social desirability of not laughing at others’ misfortunes.

Downloads

Published

2018-07-16