The mediating role of schadenfreude between malicious envy and bullying in school

Autor(en)

Maximilian Hofleitner, Joy Muth, Flora Fassl, Marko Lüftenegger

Abstrakt

Bullying in school is a multidetermined phenomenon that becomes even more complex with the increasing relevance of social status at the onset of middle adolescence. This age - between 13 and 17 - is characterized by substantial social, emotional, and cognitive developments, implicating two negative social emotions in bullying behavior: envy and schadenfreude. Envy can be distinguished between benign envy, which involves improvement motivation, and malicious envy that leads to hostile feelings towards the envied person. Schadenfreude is defined as joy over the downfall of a rival. We propose that malicious envy is positively and benign envy negatively linked to bullying perpetration and that both effects are mediated by schadenfreude. In a preregistered study with a sample of n = 2,172 secondary school students, we collected data across two waves to test this proposed mediation model. Neither malicious nor benign envy is directly related to bullying; however, the effect of malicious envy on bullying perpetration is fully mediated by schadenfreude. Exploratory analyses suggest that these pathways differ by gender, indicating that in girls, malicious envy only affects bullying through schadenfreude, whereas in boys, bullying is likely influenced through other processes.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Lehrer*innenbildung, Institut für Psychologie der Entwicklung und Bildung

Journal

Scientific Reports

Band

16

ISSN

2045-2322

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-34408-2

Publikationsdatum

2026

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501016 Pädagogische Psychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

General

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/ed4f199a-e944-4bbf-8a0f-63c3a21ae1a4