I’m Hooked On Tell Me Lies — Even After That Finale

Or, this fascination might be chalked up to plain old schadenfreude, the pleasure experienced from another person’s misfortune. According to Cohen, the experience of schadenfreude is rooted a bit in sadism, the tendency to get pleasure from someone else’s humiliation, (nothing abnormal, she emphasizes), but also in social comparison. “We’re social animals, so we’re always trying to figure out how we are doing by comparing ourselves to other people,” she says. “Sometimes we engage in upward social comparison, when we compare ourselves to others who are better than us. This can make us feel bad. But other times we engage in downward social comparison, by comparing ourselves to people who are worse off than us.” In the case of a TV show, this can make us feel better about ourselves, because we’re not making the same decisions — decisions that we may see as wrong. “It’s like, ‘Okay, I’m not perfect, but at least I’m not as bad off as that poor jerk on the reality TV show,’” Cohen says. “Some of the delight in schadenfreude is partially rooted in our need to feel like we are doing okay.”