Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, December 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 31, 2008). "Department of Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-85).

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. E. Ashby Plant, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Psychology. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 12, 2005). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A. in communication)--Washington State University. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-130). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.A.)--Kent State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 22, 2010). Advisor: Fred Endres. Keywords: Media convergence; journalism; student media; Social Indentity Theory, intergroup behavior. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (B.A. (Hons.)) - University of Queensland, 2004. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-109).

Schadenfreude is a German word, which describes the pleasure that people take in someone else's misfortune. The aim of the present research was to investigate the social functions of intergroup schadenfreude. Chapter 2 presents Studies 1-3, focusing on the social functions of experiencing intergroup schadenfreude in the context of football tournaments, using both concurrent and retrospective methods. Study 1 did not find any relation between change in perceived relative status and intergroup schadenfreude, possibly because of the sample's low domain interest and identification. However, schadenfreude was positively associated with change in status in Study 2 and with change in performance evaluation in Study 3 as expected. Also, across all three studies, intergroup schadenfreude was associated with consequences corresponding to its social distancing (e.g., distance from or dislike of the outgroup and intention to humiliate its members) and social affiliation functions (e.g., intention to celebrate with ingroup members). Importantly, schadenfreude mediated the effects of change in status (Study 2) and performance evaluation (Study 3) on these consequences. Chapter 3 presents Studies 4 and 5, which investigated whether social status is specifically associated with intergroup schadenfreude, and examined whether this social concern helps to differentiate intergroup schadenfreude from victorious joy (i.e., happiness about a third-party's victory). I developed a new experimental paradigm to manipulate participants' concern for status to elicit feelings of intergroup schadenfreude. I also manipulated participants' concern for external rewards associated with the third-party's victory to prompt victorious joy. However, in both studies, the concern for external rewards was the main influence on both intergroup schadenfreude and victorious joy, although a multivariate interaction between the two motives affected these emotions in Study 4. Hence, these studies suggest that status may be only one of the many motives underlying intergroup schadenfreude. Chapter 4 presents Study 6, which was a vignette-based study investigating the social affiliation functions of sharing intergroup schadenfreude as a function of ingroup identification. Participants read tweets from an ingroup member expressing either intergroup schadenfreude or victorious joy. Identification was also manipulated. However, results showed that recipients of intergroup schadenfreude messages formed more negative impressions of the tweeter and intended to distance themselves from him/her more than recipients of victorious joy messages. Chapter 5 provides an overview of the findings, contributions, and limitations of these six studies and discusses directions for future research. Overall, this thesis went beyond the current focus on the antecedents of schadenfreude and took steps towards the development of a social-functional account of intergroup schadenfreude.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychological Sciences / Mark A. Barnett / In the current study, 141 White third- and fourth-grade children were asked to provide their attitudes, feelings, and behaviors toward White, Black, and Hispanic peers several days before and after being read a personalized or non-personalized storybook that depicted the children, themselves (personalized) or an unfamiliar White character (non-personalized), in a cross- or same-race friendship with a target Black (cross-race) or White (same-race) storybook character. Further, children were asked to provide their attitudes, feelings, and behaviors toward the target Black or White storybook character immediately before and after being read the storybook, and report how much they felt imaginatively transported into the narrative of the story after being read the storybook. In general, and consistent with Harwood’s (2010) two-dimensional framework of contact space, it was predicted that a personalized storybook that depicted the children, themselves, in a cross-race friendship with a Black storybook character would be more effective than a non-personalized version of the storybook at improving their ratings of the Black storybook character as well as their attitudes, feelings, and behaviors toward the Black and Hispanic peers. Although analyses of the data yielded several interesting findings, no support was found for the main predictions involving the potential impact of a personalized storybook on White children's ratings of the Black storybook character, Black peers, and Hispanic peers. In fact, the only significant effect of the personalization of the storybook that merits attention involved the children’s imaginative transportation into the cross-race friendship story. Specifically, and consistent with prediction, children in the cross-race friendship storybook condition reported feeling more imaginatively transported into the narrative of the storybook when it was personalized than when it was not personalized. In sum, although personalization was indeed “powerful” in elevating White children’s imaginative transportation into a storybook that depicted a cross-race friendship, it was not powerful enough to influence their attitudes, feelings, and behaviors toward the Black storybook character, the Black peers, or the Hispanic peers. The implications and limitations of the present study, as well as directions for future research, are addressed.