The Joy of Pain (7 page)

Pleasing downward comparisons can have darker origins. Take the spate of cases in 2005–2006 of brutal assaults on homeless men. Sometimes labeled “sport killings,” these acts are typically committed by middle-class teens. One assault, featured on the CBS news show
60 Minutes
, received special attention because it resulted in an unfortunate man's death. The four teens who confessed to the crime came across the man in a wooded area where they had intended to smoke pot. They beat him in three stages for over three hours, off and on, despite his pleas to stop and his cries for help. It was an abhorrent, drawn-out series of actions, beginning with sticks and ending with a two-by-four with a nail at its end. Ed Bradley, the late CBS correspondent for the segment, interviewed the boys after they had been caught, convicted, and sentenced for the crime. The main theme in his questioning was to understand why they did what they did.
The oldest member of the group, 18 at the time of the fatal beating, explained, simply, “I guess for fun.” He was ashamed of what he and his friends had done and, in a way, seemed just as puzzled as Bradley. He claimed the man's pleas for help were the main thing he could not “keep out of [his] head … 24/7.”
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Why was it fun? The judge in the case suggested that the helplessness of these men provided someone lower on the pecking order to pick on. Brian Levin, a criminologist and an expert on hate crimes, offered a similar explanation. It would be a mistake to see offenses of this sort as committed by inveterate, hate-filled people. Rather, they are examples of young males looking for cheap thrills. They select targets who are inferior to themselves and who cannot fight back. The vulnerable, inferior status of these homeless men is a psychological boost for the perpetrators, who need to feel superiority. There is “fun” in this process.

But, still, why would these kids need a target in the first place? In this case, the teens were unaware of the DVD series,
Bumfights
, in which homeless people get paid with chump change and alcohol to engage in humiliating behaviors.
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In other cases of teens attacking homeless people, this series is cited as causing copycat behavior. The judge in the
60 Minutes
case saw one recurring theme. Many of the boys felt that they had been mistreated by others in the past. Perhaps these homeless men presented an opportunity for a kind of payback.

Is it a stretch to interpret these cases as opportunities, at least in part, for pleasing downward comparisons? It is hard to say for sure, but some details of these and other similar cases fit the profile. Psychologist Tom Wills has outlined a theory that explains why comparisons with those less fortunate can enhance a person's subjective sense of well-being.
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Normally, we feel uncomfortable observing someone's suffering. However, Wills argues that our preferences change when we have suffered, our self-esteem has taken a hit, or we are chronically low in self-esteem. Under these conditions, comparing with someone just as unfortunate or—even better—with someone who is less fortunate has restorative power. Opportunities for downward comparisons can be passive or active. In the former case, we might seek out opportunities that naturally occur all around us, such as stories in the tabloid press or gossip among friends and acquaintances.
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In the latter case, we actively derogate others or deliberately cause harm to someone, thus
creating
downward comparison opportunities.
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According to Wills, downward comparisons tend to be directed at people of lower status, or “safe” targets, who are acceptable to derogate because particular cultural norms seem to give the behavior a free pass.
²²

The beating of the homeless by these teens largely fits Wills's analysis. If the judge who adjudicated the case is right, the boys may indeed have been mistreated by others in the past. In response to their own abuse, and as a means of feeling better about themselves, they may well have sought opportunities to feel superior to others. The homeless were convenient targets. They are at the farthest and most jagged margins of society.

I hesitate to take this analysis too far. At best, downward comparison can explain only part of behavior as extreme as these beatings. That these actions happened in groups may be an another important factor in how the events played out. Extreme antisocial behaviors are more likely to occur in groups in which people become deindividuated and thus feel less responsible for their behaviors and less aware of their motivations.
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Also, maybe these teens were bored and the simple entertainment value of their behavior contributes to explaining it. But these additional factors seem insufficient for understanding the core motive for these actions; in such cases, downward comparison explanations help provide a plausible reason for actions that can otherwise seem so puzzling. The pleasing enhancement to the self, albeit at the expense of these luckless men, may have been a seductive psychological boost.

Bradley found the teen's explanation of “it was fun” unsatisfactory. We probably resist such explanations because they not only reflect poorly on the boys, but also on human nature, and, therefore, on all of us. Wills also emphasizes that his theory assumes that we are ambivalent about finding gratifications from downward comparisons. Doing this produces mixed feelings, and, certainly, no one is admired for doing so.
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When a downward comparison explanation fits, we resist it. Wills, however, argues that few people, especially when psychologically primed by their own failure or low status, refuse the opening for self-enhancement through favorable comparison. And we know from the empirical work by Wilco van Dijk and colleagues described in
Chapter 1
that
schadenfreude
is more likely if the misfortune happening to another person bolsters our self-esteem—especially when it is in need of a boost. Add the ingredients of group psychology and an especially safe, dehumanized target
and downward comparisons, even ones that are engineered, may be a tempting option.

In a sense,
schadenfreude
implies something funny. The misfortune causes us to smile and sometimes laugh in ways that we would if we heard a good joke—told at another person's or group's expense. In fact, some explanations for humor offer a link between downward social comparisons and
schadenfreude
. Perhaps the longest standing theory of humor has social comparison at its core. Superiority theory assumes that when people laugh, it results from their awareness of superiority over another person. This approach goes back as far as Plato and Aristotle, but the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes is credited with its full expression. In
The Leviathan
, he wrote that “sudden glory”

[i]s the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter; and is caused either by some sudden act of their own that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension of some deformed thing in another, by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves. And it is incident most to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves; who are forced to keep themselves in their own favour by observing the imperfections of other men.
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Laughter, in Hobbes's analysis, often stems from a
sudden
sense of superiority. And, consistent with Wills's ideas, the pleasure in sudden superiority is more likely to occur in those who are “conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves.”
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Indeed, the superiority theory of humor dovetails nicely with the idea of downward comparison. Wills also stresses the connection by noting that humor often entails a negative event happening to another person, causing a pleasurable response in an audience. A downward comparison takes on this incongruent pairing of a negative with a positive in that the negative event is
happening to someone else
.
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A downward comparison view on humor assumes that it involves self-enhancement by comparing oneself favorably to another. It also takes threat to self-esteem into account. Wills observes that many examples of humor concern topics about which the audience feels “insecure,” such as sexual inadequacies, uneasy relationships with one's boss, ethnic inferiority, and the
like. Humor, in social comparison terms, relieves insecurities by providing a flattering social comparison in these and other aspects of life.
²⁸

As I noted, humor often arises at another person's or group's expense. But at whose expense more specifically? As with downward comparisons, the preference is a safe target. Audiences laugh at jokes that focus on people of lower status, often ethnic, racial, or religious groups usually disliked by the audience. Many comedians more or less make downward comparisons their stock in trade. Insult comics, in the tradition of Groucho Marx (“I never forget a face, but in your case, I'll be glad to make an exception”
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) and Don Rickles (“Oh my God, look at you. Anyone else hurt in the accident?”
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), add extreme elements. There is little evidence that we fundamentally object to this approach, even in these extreme forms. We love it. What comedian can waste an opportunity to go for the comic jugular when given examples of anyone displaying a human frailty? Most of the jokes in the opening monologues of late-night talk shows highlight the foolish behaviors of others. Such behaviors are free gifts for a comedian. When people become objects of downward comparison humor because of the exotic nature of their failings, contemporary comedians such as Jon Stewart will show gratitude for the comic material—and wish it a long half-life. Stewart rejoiced in reaction to an extraordinary gaff committed by a politician during a political debate in November 2011: “Are you not entertained? There is so much meat on that bone, and it is all breast meat.”
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A more recent variant of the superiority theory of humor is advanced by psychologist Charles Gruner. He likens the experience of laughter to winning.
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Gruner uses “winning” in the broadest sense: “getting what we want.” This can mean winning an argument, reaching a goal, or defeating something in nature, such as finally digging up a stubborn tree root. What is funny, in Gruner's view, turns on
who
wins
what
, and
who
loses
what
. Often, when we find something funny,
we
are winning because of someone else's stupidity, clumsiness, or moral or cultural defect.
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Gruner's ideas are consistent with evolutionary psychology. Our ancestors' struggles for survival in the competitive conditions of scarcity and competition for mates would have bred emotional reactions to rewards (victory) and loss (defeat). In sports, where norms do not forbid expressing joy in victory, we often see self-assertive, aggressive laughter. One can see examples of the “thrill
of victory” in competition events that are captured and preserved in the media. Remember U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps reacting to his 2008 Olympic relay victory? How about Tiger Woods fist pumping after making the clutch putt that catapulted him into a commanding position deep into the fourth round of the 2008 U.S. Open? Gruner claims that the feeling of winning strikes a chord that harkens back to our evolutionary past, where a competitive triumph surely aided survival.
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Open pleasure, especially when the outcome is sudden and the result of struggle, is a natural reaction to winning. Is it any surprise that hyperbole such as, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die,” made by comedian Mel Brooks, can seem more than simply eccentric?
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The superiority theory of humor is also supported by research showing how people use social comparisons at the intergroup level to boost self-esteem. Humor that entails disparaging an outgroup is one way of enhancing one's own group and, indirectly, one's own self-esteem. Indeed, studies confirm that we are more likely to laugh at jokes that disparage outgroups rather than ingroups; this makes us feel better about ourselves.
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