Schadenfreude is a German term that describes the complicated joy people sometimes get from someone else's misfortune Pleasure from witnessing someone else's misfortune. Schadenfreude May Be More Innate Than Learned, As 2-Year-Olds Display Pleasure In Misfortune. Aaron Ben-Ze'ev's Depiction of Emotions as Adaptive Mechanisms. Schadenfreude is an all-too-familiar. Earlier today, I was trying to park in the praise.