Getting closer: compassion training increases feelings of closeness toward a disliked person

Evidence-based interventions to favor more harmonious interactions in difficult relationships remain scarce. This study examined whether compassion training may have beneficial effects in an ongoing tense relationship with a disliked person, by reducing schadenfreude toward them and increasing felt interpersonal closeness. 108 participants were assigned to one of three 5-week trainings in a longitudinal randomized controlled study: compassion training, reappraisal training (emotion regulation control condition), or Italian language training (neutral active control condition). The disliked person was not targeted during the trainings to test potential transfer effects. Misfortune scenarios and a measure of interpersonal closeness were used to test whether schadenfreude and closeness feelings toward a disliked person changed from pre- to post-training, across different experimental and control groups. Only compassion and reappraisal trainees reported a decrease of schadenfreude feelings toward the disliked person compared to their pre-training ratings, no changes were observed in the Italian language training. Importantly, feelings of closeness toward the disliked person increased in the compassion training group compared to the other two groups. This increase of closeness feelings could be a central mechanism for improving social interactions. These transfer effects open new perspectives concerning emotion regulation interventions in conflict resolution.

The bittersweet smell of success: Malicious online responses to others achievements

A prominent recurring theme in social comparison is the concept that individuals are not indifferent to the results that others achieve, and typically seek pleasure while avoiding pain. However, in some cases they behave atypically-counter to this principle. The purpose of this research is to investigate one atypical response, namely gluckschmerz-a negative response to information about others' success (feeling bad at others' fortunes). To advance objectives, a mixed-mode of two studies were conducted using a combination of primary and secondary analyzes, and qualitative and quantitative methods. Findings reveal that this aversive feeling encourages consumers to share online "positive" information with others but using negative malicious word-of-mouth narratives. They provide compelling evidence supporting the theory that some of the positive commercial information conveyed through electronic media triggers negative word-of mouth in the form of online firestorms driven by the discordant atypical sentiment of gluckschmerz.