Non-sympathetic FRN responses to drops in others’ stocks

Abstract

Previous neuroeconomic studies have observed that people display sympathetic neural responses toward others’ misfortunes. We argue that the reverse emotions, such as gloating or schadenfreude, may also emerge in certain circumstances. To examine this theory, we recorded feedback-related negativity (FRN) toward others’ large or small gains or losses in a stock market context. We adopted the framework of social distance, according to which we hypothesized that because others in the stock market are far away, unidentified, and indistinct, people would show less sympathy or even schadenfreude toward others’ large losses. The results indicated that FRN at Fz was significantly less negative when observing larger decreases in others’ stock, indicating that others’ large losses are not unexpected negative events in the stock market and suggesting the existence of schadenfreude. Our research contributes to the understanding of social neurofinance by demonstrating the schadenfreude effect in relation to the stock market. This study also provides new information regarding the relationship between FRN and the social emotions that form the expectations of gain and loss.

Keywords:

• Event-related potential
• Feedback-related negativity
• Sympathy
• Schadenfreude
• Social neurofinance

We deeply thank Dr. Jorge Moll, the Editor, and reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments and suggestions on an early version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NSFC [grant nos. 71021001, 91224008, and 91324201].