Oh, the joy of inflicting pain upon others. The Germans have a word for it: “schadenfreude,” meaning “malicious pleasure.” And tapping into its sentiment properly can, ironically, do a lot of good by raising money for charity. In a paper, titled “The Ironic Impact of Schadenfreude: When the Joy of Inflicting Pain Leads to Increased Prosocial Behavior,” published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, UC Riverside School of Business marketing professor and associate dean Thomas Kramer and co-authors articulate and quantify the appeal of schadenfreude (pronounced Sha-den-froid-e) through the lens Read More
