This two-part study conducted in Japan used functional MRI to determine the neuroanatomic locations of envy and schadenfreude (a rewarding feeling derived from another’s misfortune).
Nineteen healthy volunteers (10 men; mean age, 22) underwent fMRI while reading descriptions of a “protagonist” (with whom they were to identify) and three comparison students. The comparison students were either the same sex as the protagonist and superior in domains significant to the protagonist (“self-relevant”) or of the opposite sex and superior in an unimportant area or had mediocre ability. In the schadenfreude paradigm, a misfortune occurred to the comparison students.
Volunteers’ self-rated envy of a self-relevant, advantaged comparison student was asso…
Reviewing Author
DisclosuresRoyaltiesTextbook of Traumatic Brain Injury, 2nd and 3rd editions
Editorial BoardsUpToDate; Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Leadership Positions in Professional SocietiesNorth American Brain Injury Association (Board Member); National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (Chair of Data Monitoring Safety Board for study of donepezil on cognition after traumatic brain injury)
DisclosuresRoyaltiesTextbook of Traumatic Brain Injury, 2nd and 3rd editions
Editorial BoardsUpToDate; Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Leadership Positions in Professional SocietiesNorth American Brain Injury Association (Board Member); National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (Chair of Data Monitoring Safety Board for study of donepezil on cognition after traumatic brain injury)