Toddlers. So innocent, so loving, so sweet.
Until you fall down and hurt yourself in front of one. Then the little bastards laugh their butts off.
Scientists have recently finished a study that says it’s not just the allure of physical comedy that gives young children pleasure from pain, that in fact they have much more complex emotions than previously thought. Darker motivations like jealousy and even hatred might lie behind their giggles. Just like you and me.
Researchers previously believed children didn’t really start polluting their souls with schadenfreude until age seven, but a new experiment shows that it starts to happen as early as two.
The experiment conducted by the University of Haifa set up 35 groups consisting of mother, child of two to three years of age and child’s same age friend. They were then subjected to two situations:
Mother lets the children play together and ignores them to read a book, then “accidentally” spills water on the book.
Mother takes the child that isn’t her child and reads the book to them, then “accidentally” spills water on the book.
They found that there was little to no reaction when the mother spilled water on the book. But when the mother spilled water on the books after coddling the rival? Then “the mother’s own child showed visible signs of happiness, as expressed by jumping up and down, clapping his hands, or rolling on the floor.”
The researchers theorize that the pleasure the children feel is because the “accident” ends the competition for their mother’s attention that they see as a threat. One theory about schadenfreude is that it arose as an evolutionary mechanism to aid in competition for resources, like a struggle between two siblings for attention. It helps us recognize when we’re being treated unequally and be happy when that situation is disrupted, although as we get older we continue to feel pleasure at other people’s bad luck even when there’s no direct competition for resources.
“The study strengthened the perception that schadenfreude is an evolutionary mechanism that develops within us as we cope with situations of inequality,” said Prof. Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory, of the University of Haifa’s Psychology Department, who led the study.
[Source: University of Haifa]