Anger, negative partisanship, and joy in the suffering of political others

American political behavior is increasingly characterized by anger and feelings of negativity towards the opposing political party. Yet, our understanding of how this anger and negativity shape attitudes towards out-partisans is not fully understood. In this paper, we study how anger and out-party negativity affect Americans' expression of partisan schadenfreude. Drawing on data from a survey experiment of nearly 2900 American partisans, we find that the exogenous introduction of anger causes respondents to experience “joy in the suffering” of partisan others. However, this effect is limited to schadenfreude directed towards an out-party neighbor; it does not extend to schadenfreude directed towards an out-party politician. Moreover, we find that this effect is not moderated by an individual's level of pre-existing negativity towards the out-party. Our results suggest that the growing amounts of anger in American politics can – and does – shape how individuals view, and empathize with, their fellow citizens.