Sadistic pleasure and diminished suffering perceptions: Further evidence that sadism entails rationalization

Abstract

Nonclinical people high in sadism report less displeasure upon witnessing another person's suffering; some recent theorizing speculates that such people may seek to rationalize this blunted displeasure by diminishing another's amount of suffering. To help address this idea further in the context of an experimental design, participants (N = 375) read about a target suffering various humiliating events; as a within-subjects manipulation, they imagined the target suffered no emotional turmoil (i.e., no-suffering condition) or was highly disturbed (i.e., suffering condition). In addition to estimating the target's emotional suffering, they indicated their pleasant vs. unpleasant mood as they read the vignette. Sadism only related positively to pleasant mood in the suffering condition, and only related negatively to perceptions of target-emotional-suffering in the suffering condition. Furthermore, within the suffering condition, mediation evidence was consistent with the possibility that sadism related to reduced perceptions of target-emotional-suffering via the experience of less displeasure. Additional analyses accounted for sadism's confounding with other dark-personality constructs, gender, and aggressive humor. The present work supports the possibility that sadism may encompass blunted displeasure from others' suffering and rationalization mechanisms for this blunted displeasure.