When is your pain my gain? The use of perspective taking by everyday sadists

Abstract

Findings from previous literature suggest that taking the perspective of a suffering victim is an important factor for a sadistic individual to experience pleasure. In the present study (N = 387, with a priori preregistered hypotheses, analyses, and sample size), we examined the impact of perspective taking in everyday (non-clinical) sadists from the general population. Specifically, we tested how everyday sadists' emotional reactions were affected by different perspective-taking instructions when exposed to another person's misfortune. Results revealed that individual differences in everyday sadism predicted the tendency to experience pleasure from another's misfortune. Further analysis of the interaction between individual differences in everyday sadism and perspective-taking instructions indicated that instructions to take a suffering other's perspective (compared to receiving no instructions) significantly reduced everyday sadists' tendency to derive pleasure from said suffering. In sum, the present research contributes to a better understanding of sadistic tendencies and the possible role of perspective taking in reducing sadistic pleasure among everyday sadists.