Sports Are for Schadenfreude
Oh, right, yes: schadenfreude. It’s only natural. A study released just last weeksays that even toddlers take joy in the misfortune of others. In the early aughts, psychologists out to study schadenfreude, lo and behold, focused on European soccer fans. And they seemed to find what you’d expect: that the intensity of the feeling depends on the sufferer’s relationship to the beneficiary’s team’s status, and that people more invested in the sport feel it more.