Doing Good or Feeling Good? Justice Concerns Predict Online Shaming Via Deservingness and Schadenfreude

Barron, A., Woodyatt, L., et al. (2023).

SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4359608

Abstract

Public shaming has moved from the village square and is now an established online phenomenon. The current paper explores whether online shaming is motivated by a person’s desire to do good (a justice motive); and/or, because it feels good (a hedonic motive), specifically, as a form of malicious pleasure at another’s misfortune (schadenfreude). We examine two key aspects of social media that may moderate these processes: anonymity (Study 1) and social norms (the responses of other users; Studies 2-3). Across three experiments (N = 225, 198, 202) participants were presented with a fabricated news article featuring an instance of Islamophobia and given the opportunity to respond. Participants’ concerns about social justice were not directly positively associated with online shaming and had few consistent indirect effects on shaming via moral outrage. Rather, justice concerns were primarily associated with shaming via participants’ perception that the offender was deserving of negative consequences, and their feelings of schadenfreude regarding these consequences. Anonymity did not moderate this process and there was mixed evidence for the qualifying effect of social norms. Overall, the current studies point to the hedonic motive in general and schadenfreude specifically as a key moral emotion associated with people’s shaming behaviour.

Conclusion

The results from three studies point to perceptions of deservingness and schadenfreude as important predictors of online shaming. Given the exploratory nature of the current work and the paucity of existing research on online shaming, many avenues exist for future research. Social psychology is well placed to understand both individual and group processes that may influence shaming behaviour – in particular, how certain features of the online environment and aspects of the transgressor may interact to influence the nature and severity of online shaming behaviour. As society continues to rely on social media to consume content and connect with others, we are hopeful that future research stimulates a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of online shaming and its consequences. 

Here are some additional key points from the article:

• Online shaming is a form of social punishment that is increasingly common in the digital age.
• There are two main motivations for online shaming: a desire to do good (a justice motive) and a desire to feel good (a hedonic motive).
• The feeling of schadenfreude plays an important role in mediating the relationship between justice concerns and online shaming.

Study Says Social Media Schadenfreude Is Real

By Laura Bradley
Slate
Originally published October 6, 2014

If you catch yourself using Facebook to check up on every burnout from high school when you’re down, know this: You’re not alone.

A new study from Ohio State University suggests that when people aren’t feeling their best, they tend to be more interested in social media profiles of those they consider less attractive, successful, or just generally well-off. In other words, a study finally corroborates what we all know to be true: Looking at a friend’s engagement photos while on a Friday night date with Netflix and Ben & Jerry’s is just not appealing.

The entire story is here.

Your pain, my gain: Feeling pleasure over the misfortune of those you envy is biological

Press Release
Princeton University
Released October 28, 2013

Mina Cikara found her thesis when she wore a Boston Red Sox hat to a New York Yankees baseball game. Nicknames and vulgarities were among the souvenirs she took home. And, after hearing about the name-calling and heckling her then-PhD student endured, Princeton professor Susan Fiske was compelled to join her in pursuing the phenomenon further, exploring why people fail to empathize with others based on stereotypes.

Through a series of four experiments – one involving the aforementioned sports rivalry – the researchers found that people are actually biologically responsive to taking pleasure in the pain of others, a reaction known as "Schadenfreude." By measuring the electrical activity of cheek muscles, the researchers show that people smile more when someone they envy experiences misfortune or discomfort. While these findings hold significance for interpersonal relationships, the researchers also cite associated policy implications, such as how other countries view and stereotype the United States especially given that many countries envy the U.S., Fiske said. Their findings were reported in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

"Jealousy and envy are highly correlated," said Fiske, coauthor of the study and the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School. "When we ask people on surveys who is envied in American society, they report the same groups: objects of jealousy. This is all very much based on stereotypes. And so, in this study, we sought to better understand who is among these envied groups and whether that envy and jealousy elicits a harmful response."

"We were interested in the conditions under which people fail to empathize with one another and how, for some of those people, they experience happiness at another's expense," said lead author Cikara, now an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "We wanted to start in a place where people would be willing to express their opinions and willingness to harm more freely, like we see in sports. We asked ourselves: what is it about rivalries that elicit a harmful response? And can we predict who will have this response?"

The entire press release is here.

‘Everyday Sadists’ Among Us

By Jan Hoffman
The New York Times
Originally published September 16, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

Those who enjoy inflicting at least moderate pain on others, directly or vicariously, mingle with us daily. Think mean girls, taunting a classmate to commit suicide. Or the professor who grills a squirming, clueless student, lips curled in a small, savage smile.

Delroy L. Paulhus, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, calls such people “everyday sadists.”

“They exist on a spectrum,” he said. “It could be at a hockey game and your guy is pummeling the opponent into hamburger and people are standing up having orgasms, to taking revenge on those you think deserve it, to schadenfreude.”

But acknowledging that sadists regularly cross our paths is unsettling, said Scott O. Lilienfeld, a professor of psychology at Emory University, who studies personality disorders. “We prefer to think, ‘There’s sadists, and then there’s the rest of us.’ ”

The entire story is here.