Doing Good or Feeling Good Justice Concerns Predict Online Shaming Via Deservingness

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Doing good or feeling good? Justice concerns predict online shaming via deservingness
and schadenfreude
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Anna C. Barrona
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Lydia Woodyattb,c
Emma F. Thomasb
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J. E. Katherine Lohb
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Katherine Dunningb
aSchool of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

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bCollege of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University

cOrama, Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing
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Word Count (including text and notes): 9844

Abstract: 199
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Keywords: online shaming; schadenfreude; deservingness; social justice; moral outrage
Author Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anna C. Barron, School of
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Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08542. Email:
anna.barron@princeton.edu.
This preprint research paper has not been peer reviewed. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4359608
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and schadenfreude
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Word Count: 9844
Abstract: 199
Keywords: online shaming; schadenfreude; deservingness; social justice; moral outrage

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Abstract
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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
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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
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(Study 1) and social norms (the responses of other users; Studies 2-3). Across three
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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
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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
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deserving of negative consequences, and their feelings of schadenfreude regarding these
consequences. Anonymity did not moderate this process and there was mixed evidence for
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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
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shaming behaviour.
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and schadenfreude
The arrival of “pandemic shaming” on social media following the outbreak of
COVID-19 once again highlighted the speed and scale at which instances of public shaming
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can develop online. In countries undergoing lockdown, photos and videos of people refusing
to socially distance or wear masks went viral on social networking sites (Max, 2020). On
Twitter, the term “#COVIDiot” was coined to refer to an individual seen to breach public
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health advice (Tait, 2020). Pandemic shaming is just the most recent example in a growing
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list of online shaming events where individuals are publicly condemned for violating
perceived norms or values – with sometimes devastating consequences for the individuals
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targeted (Parr & Billingham, 2020). Victims of online shaming have reported experiencing
anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Ronson, 2016). In 2015, a 13-year-old
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girl died of suicide days after her father posted a video online shaming her for sending a
photo to a male classmate (Schrobsdorff, 2015).
Despite growing evidence of the harmful consequences of online shaming (e.g.,

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Marwick, 2021; Muir et al., 2020; Ronson, 2016), experimental work examining the factors
that motivate people to shame others online is still relatively nascent. In the current paper we
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explore two possible explanations for engagement in online shaming. We propose that, on
one hand, online shaming may reflect people’s desire to right a wrong (what we term the
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justice motive). That is, online shaming may be motivated by people’s concerns over
violations of social norms or moral standards of behaviour (Brickman et al., 1981; Lerner,
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1981), a belief that the transgressor is deserving of punishment (Feather, 1999), and their
feelings of moral outrage regarding the wrongdoing (Haidt, 2003; Montada & Schneider,
1989). Alternatively, calling out others for their (real or perceived) transgressions may also
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feel good, and thus may be motivated by (what we term) the hedonic motive. Specifically, we
explore the role of schadenfreude – the experience of malicious pleasure at witnessing
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another’s misfortune (Feather, 2012; van Dijk & Ouwerkerk, 2014) – as a potential predictor
of shaming behaviour. We examine these two possible processes in the context of an incident
of Islamophobia depicted on an online news site.
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Further, we explore two key aspects of online environments that may amplify
shaming behaviour via a justice or hedonic pathway: the role of anonymity (Study 1) and the
behaviour of other online users (Studies 2-3). It may be that the relative anonymity afforded
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to online users exacerbates the justice and hedonic pathways outlined above as there are no
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perceived costs to the self in an anonymous environment (Crockett, 2017; Christopherson,
2007; Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012). In addition, the behaviour of other users may increase
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a person’s likelihood of engaging in online shaming when shaming is condoned, supported,
and even encouraged by other users (i.e., it becomes normative; Chia, 2019; Lea et al., 1992;
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Reicher et al., 1995).
Doing Good: Online Shaming Arising from the Justice Motive
In the monograph So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Ronson (2016) interviews

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individuals who have previously participated in online shaming. Consistently, participants
mention being driven by a “desire to do good” (p. 116). Therefore, one possibility is that
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people engage in online shaming because they are motivated to restore a sense of justice
following their perception that an important moral value or standard has been violated by
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another’s actions (Wenzel et al., 2008; Wenzel & Okimoto, 2010). Often, demands for
punishment in response to such violations reflect people’s belief that an offender is deserving
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of negative consequences (the notion of a transgressor receiving their “just deserts”;
Carlsmith et al., 2002).
If this is the case, we would expect that perceived norm violations and perceptions of
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deservingness would be accompanied by feelings of moral outrage regarding the behaviour
of the transgressor. Moral outrage is defined as “anger produced by the perceived violation of
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a moral standard or principle” (Batson et al., 2007, p. 1273). Conceptually, moral outrage can
be distinguished from personal anger – which predominantly arises where one’s personal
interests have been harmed (O’Mara et al., 2011). In the context of online shaming, moral
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outrage should arise following the perception that an individual has deliberately violated an
important moral standard or principle, and that, as such, they are deserving of punishment
(Feather, 1999; Smith, 2002). For instance, Bastian et al. (2013) demonstrated that moral
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outrage mediated the relationship between perceptions of harm and the desired severity of
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punishment of the offender.
Although feelings of outrage are often cast in a destructive light (for discussion see
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Spring et al., 2018), current theorising in social psychology suggests that moral outrage is
important in uniting people to act together to promote justice for disadvantaged or

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marginalized groups (Thomas et al., 2009). In this sense, to the degree that online shaming is
motivated by concerns about justice, it could be understood to be analogous to online
activism (see Akfırat et al., 2020; Thomas et al., 2020; 2022). Importantly, moral outrage has
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been implicated as a justification for certain forms of online harassment following perceived
norm violations (Marwick, 2021). Marwick (2021) describes how even extreme forms of
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online shaming (e.g., disseminating personal information about an offender and/or sending
death threats) are justified on the basis of concerns about moral norms being violated.
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Shaming allows people to communicate that they oppose such norm violations, as well as
signalling to others in their given network to do the same (thereby triggering further outrage
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and harassment; Sawaoka & Monin, 2018). Given this, one possibility is that people’s
concerns about social justice will influence online shaming via perceptions that the offender
is deserving of punishment, and associated moral outrage regarding their actions.

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Feeling Good: Online Shaming Arising from the Hedonic Motive
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However, people may punish for motives beyond “doing good”. An alternative view
is that people participate in online shaming because they get an emotional payoff – that is,
because it feels good to do it. Indeed, Jensen (2012) argues that people are less motivated by
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altruistic concerns for social justice and more motivated by the gratification derived from
experiencing spite and schadenfreude – the feeling of pleasure, joy, or satisfaction at
witnessing another receiving negative consequences (Leach et al., 2015). Schadenfreude has
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been distinguished from related concepts such as gloating, where one aims to flaunt or boast
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about an opponent’s misfortune – usually in the context of direct competition (Leach et al.,
2015). In contrast, the experience of schadenfreude is unique in that it primarily occurs

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following misfortune that is not directly caused by the schadenfroh (the individual
experiencing schadenfreude).
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Like moral outrage, schadenfreude also arises following perceived norm violations
(e.g., Feather & Sherman 2002; Powell & Smith 2013; van Dijk & Ouwerkerk 2014).
Similarly, schadenfreude is stronger when we evaluate a person as responsible and deserving

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of receiving punishment (Feather, 2006; Wang et al., 2019). However, unlike moral outrage,
schadenfreude is an emotion that captures feelings of delight at observing a perpetrator being

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punished (Feather, 2008; 2012). Indeed, research has shown that the experience of
schadenfreude is related to the activation of reward centres in the brain (Rodríguez-Gómez et

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al., 2020). In the context of online interactions, Wei and Lui (2020) found that disclosures of
misfortune on social media elicited people’s expressions of schadenfreude, and that these
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effects were mediated by perceived deservingness. Further, Cecconi et al.’s (2020) analysis
of comments posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram concerning contentious political
issues (i.e., Brexit) showed that many posts expressed what they term “injustice
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schadenfreude” – schadenfreude resulting from the belief that another’s misfortune is
deserved because of that person’s own (past) unjust behaviour (p. 2). Taken together, these
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findings suggest that justice concerns and deservingness perceptions may influence online
shaming via people’s feelings of pleasure regarding the offender’s punishment (i.e., their
experience of schadenfreude).
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The (Moderating) Role of the Online Environment
There are many aspects of online shaming that distinguish it from its historical
analogues. Unlike the town square of centuries past, information online can be easily
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distributed to a global audience via a couple of clicks (Klonick, 2015). Online, what may
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begin as one user calling out a transgressor for their behaviour often snowballs into more
malevolent forms of online shaming (e.g., “doxxing” – a practice where online users work
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together to distribute private identifying information about a target; Eckert & Metzger-
Riftkin, 2020, p. 2). Thus, in the current paper we aim to understand both the individual
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motives as well as the contextual factors that may influence the nature of shaming that people
engage in on social media. We therefore focus on two aspects of social networking sites that
may exacerbate online shaming via a justice or hedonic path: the relative anonymity of
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individuals online, and the social influence of other online users.
An inherent feature of online communication platforms is that individuals are

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relatively anonymous (Brady et al., 2020). A wealth of research has implicated anonymity as
an important motivator in the display of more hostile online behaviour (Barlett et al. 2016,
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Fox et al., 2015; Moore et al., 2012). For example, Wilton and Campbell (2011) found that
adolescents who engaged in cyberbullying reported feeling anonymous and “seemingly

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untouchable” (p. 2). Accordingly, anonymity may work to make either the justice motive or
the hedonic pathway stronger, as restoring justice or feeling malicious pleasure via shaming a
target online does not entail any perceived consequences for oneself (Brady et al., 2020;
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Crockett, 2017).
Alongside the affordances of anonymity, social media provides a key platform for
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intra- and intergroup interaction. The Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects
(SIDE; Reicher, Spears & Postmes, 1995; Postmes & Spears, 1998a) proposes that when
immersed in an online group, people make a shift from their personal identity to their social
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identity. This shift has been shown to lead to behaviour that is strongly susceptible to
normative influence (i.e., people attend more to norms operating within the online group or
network that they identify with; Postmes et al., 2000; Reicher et al, 1995). Thus, online
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shaming behaviour could be understood in terms of peoples’ increased susceptibility to the
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thoughts, feelings, and actions of those around them (the social norms present in the given
context), and, in this way, provide an account for how online shaming can emerge as a
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normalized behaviour within online networks.
Indeed, Brady et al. (2020) propose that expressions of moral emotions (e.g., outrage,
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disgust, contempt, and shame) are more likely to “go viral” on social media (p. 980). Brady et
al. (2020) suggest that context specific norms (i.e., the norms operating within a particular
online network) may shape the extent to which emotions are diffused on social media. For
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example, following the widespread expression of moral outrage online, other users may shift
their emotions from positive (e.g., happiness) to negative (e.g., anger) to match the emotions
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of similar others (Brady et al., 2020; Goldenberg et al., 2020). In line with this work, Chia
(2019) found that individuals’ cyber vigilantism (that is, searching for information to “name
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and shame” wrongdoers) was influenced by the behaviour of others – an effect mediated by
participant’s perception that online vigilantism was socially acceptable.

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In the current research, we propose that social norms may influence online shaming
via both a justice and hedonic pathway. We suggest that how people express their concerns
around social justice, perceptions of deservingness, moral outrage, and schadenfreude – that
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is, the type and severity of shaming they engage in – may be particularly susceptible to
normative influence (i.e., shaped by the responses of others). Specifically, we test whether
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presenting shaming as a normative response (in the form of comments left by other users)
enhances the links between justice concerns, deservingness, moral outrage, and shaming (the
justice motive), and/or the relationship between justice concerns, deservingness,
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schadenfreude, and shaming (the hedonic motive).
The Present Research and Proposed Model
In three studies, we explore two pathways through which online shaming may occur:
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1) a justice motive, in which justice concerns and perceptions of deservingness facilitate
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online shaming via participants’ moral outrage, and/or 2) a hedonic motive, whereby the
experience of schadenfreude (malicious pleasure in watching another’s misfortune) mediates

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the relationship between justice concerns and perceptions of deservingness on shaming (see
Figure 1 for our hypothesized conceptual model). In Study 1 we test the moderating role of
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anonymity by manipulating how identifiable participants feel during the study. In Studies 2-3,
we manipulate social norms by varying the severity of comments left by perceived other
users.
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Figure 1. Theoretical Model of Online Shaming via a Justice or Hedonic Motive.
Across all three studies participants were told that they would be taking part in a
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survey interested in people’s responses to information that they encounter online, and that
their task would be to evaluate an article that had been published on an online news website.
Participants were presented with a (fabricated) news article about an instance of
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Islamophobia on Australian public transport. The article described an incident in which a
male university student (‘Benjamin’) verbally abused a woman wearing a hijab on a Sydney
bus. Participants were told that below the news article they would be able to view responses
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from other participants who had previously participated (or were currently participating) in
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the study. In reality, these responses were preprogramed by the researchers. Participants were
next provided with the opportunity to respond. We systematically varied the information
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conveying the reactions of other participants (Studies 2-3); and took behavioural measures of
our outcome variables (‘likes’, Study 1; ‘reacts’, Studies 2-3; ‘shares’; and comments,
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Studies 1-3). We then took measures of justice concerns, moral outrage, deservingness, and
schadenfreude. Participants’ comments were content analysed for evidence of shaming.
Operationalizing Online Shaming Behaviour

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People can engage in a wide variety of strategies to condemn perceived norm
violations on social media and, it follows, that online shaming can include several online
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actions – from sharing images, to posting statuses, to leaving comments (Muir et al., 2010).
In the current study we therefore operationalized online shaming using two behavioural
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measures. The first includes participants’ overall engagement with the news article, that is,
the extent to which they commented, “liked”, “reacted”, or “shared” the article. While these
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actions may appear relatively harmless in isolation, interacting with or “sharing” content
online can increase its visibility and thereby contribute to a “pile on” effect whereby
thousands of users are exposed to the content in a short period of time; Thompson & Cover,
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2021, p. 1; see also Loveluck, 2020; Sawaoka & Monin, 2018).
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The second shaming measure was created to explore the severity of participants’
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responses by analysing the content of participants’ comments. Here we drew on Braithwaite’s
(1989) theory of reintegrative vs stigmatizing shaming to identify whether participants
comments could be classified as “shaming”. According to Braithwaite (1989), stigmatising
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shaming intends to label an offender as “evil” in an attempt to cast them out from the moral
community (p. 101). In contrast, reintegrative shaming condemns an act as immoral but does
not label the transgressor as such. Thus, consistent with Braithwaite’s concept of
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“stigmatizing” shaming, severe shaming responses were defined as those that targeted the
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offender as a person, while comments that targeted the offender’s behaviour were considered
less severe.
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Participants were presented with a news article depicting an instance of Islamophobia

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and were asked to view all the content on the page before responding (by ‘liking’, ‘sharing’,
and/or commenting). Participants were told that they could choose to make any (or all) of the
available responses and that they were also free to not respond. Anonymity was manipulated
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via instructions that told participants that their responses (and the responses of the “other
users”) would be identified by randomized usernames, or by participants entering their full

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names (this data was not collected and only observable to the participant). We tested our
theoretical model using multigroup structural equation modelling (SEM) with anonymity
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(anonymous, identifiable) as the grouping variable. Multigroup SEM allows for testing
complex mediation models across experimental groups (Yuan & Bentler, 2001).
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Method
Participants and design. Participants were 225 students at an Australian university
(79% female; Mage = 22.20), 169 of whom participated for course credit and 56 volunteers
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from the wider student population who were reimbursed 10.00AUD for their time. The study
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adopted a 2-cell between-groups design (anonymous vs. identifiable) design. Sample size was
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determined based on prevailing standards at the time that we collect the data of
approximately 200 participants (a minimum of 40 participants per cell1).
Procedure. Participants accessed the study online by clicking on a Qualtrics survey
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link and were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions (anonymous vs.
identifiable). Participants were told that their task would be to read a news article that had
recently been published on an online news site. The news article was created to emulate
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articles typically found on online news websites (the content was adapted from a series of
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Islamophobic incidents that had occurred and were published online between 2015-2016).
Participants were told that the comments, ‘likes’, and ‘shares’ of other participants (described
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as people who, like them, were currently participating or had previously participated in the
study) would be displayed beneath the news article. In Study 1 the responses of the “other
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participants” were held constant across condition. Consistent with Braithwaite’s (1989)
definition of stigmatizing shaming (shaming with the intention of condemning the
transgressor as a person), the majority of these comments expressed condemnation that

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targeted the offender: e.g., “Disgusting this guy shoud be ashamed of himself”; “this is awful,
he should be thrown out of uni” 2.

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To manipulate anonymity, participants in the anonymous condition (N = 113) were
assigned a personal user ID (i.e., H38119) and told that their response would appear
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alongside this username. The comments from the supposed other participants in this
condition had a series of randomized usernames attached. In the identifiable condition (N =

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112), participants were required to enter their first and last name and were led to believe that
their responses would appear next to their name. In this condition, the comments from the
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1 Study 1 involved a 2 x 2 design. We report the results of another (unsuccessful) manipulation unrelated to the
focal variables in the online supplementary materials.
2 All of the spelling and grammatical errors in the comments are intentional
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supposed “other users” had a series of first and last names attached to them, all fabricated by
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the researchers (Figure 2 depicts the news article and the comments shown to participants in
the identifiable condition).
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Figure 2. User interface for Study 1 for participants in the Identifiable condition.
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Participants were invited to respond to the article by submitting a comment, “liking”,
and/or “sharing” the article. Participants then completed an anonymity manipulation check
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and measures of justice concerns, moral outrage, deservingness, and schadenfreude.
Participants also completed additional exploratory measures unrelated to the focus of the
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current paper. Finally, participants completed demographic variables and were debriefed
regarding the authenticity of the news article and comments.

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Dependent Measures
All items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale anchored at 1 (strongly disagree) to
7 (strongly agree) unless otherwise specified. Measures are scored such that higher scores
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indicate being higher on the particular construct.
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Manipulation check. One item was used to assess how anonymous participants felt
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when responding to the article, “I felt anonymous when choosing how to respond to the news
article”.
Justice concerns. Adapted from Wenzel & Okimoto (2010), four items were used to
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assess participants’ perception that the offender in the news article had violated important
values, “I feel the person in the article acted in a way that is inconsistent with my values and
beliefs”, “The person in the article disregarded the values we should all share”, “The person
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in the article has violated common decency”, and “I have similar values and beliefs as the
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person in the article” (reverse-coded), α = .77.
Deservingness. Three items were created to capture participants belief that the
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offender in the news article was deserving of negative consequences, “I feel that the person in
the article deserves any negative outcomes they may receive”, “The person in the article
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deserves to be punished for their actions”, and “The person in the article deserves to be called
out for their behaviour in a public way”, α = .80.
Moral outrage. Three items were used to capture participants’ emotional experience
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of moral outrage: “I feel angry because of the actions of the person in the article”, “I feel
outraged by the actions of the person in the article”, and “I feel a sense of injustice about
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what has occurred”, α = .82.
Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude was assessed using two items adapted from Feather
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& Sherman (2002), “It was gratifying to see how others responded to the person in the
article” and “I felt pleased by the responses of others to the person in the article”, r = .77.
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Behavioural measures of shaming. As anticipated above, two shaming measures
were created using the three behavioural measures (whether participants commented,
“reacted”, or “shared”).
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Total number of shaming responses. A total shaming response score was calculated
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by adding the number of behavioural responses participants selected out of the available
choices: 1 = no response; 2 = one response; 3 = two responses; 4 = all possible responses.
Comment severity. Comments were content analysed by three independent coders –
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all blind to participant condition – who coded for the level of condemnation expressed in
participants’ comments (1 = no comment, 2 = comment that expresses no condemnation; 3 =
shaming that targets the offender’s behaviour; 4 = stigmatizing shaming that targets the
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offender as a person). As anticipated above, stigmatizing shaming responses (coded 4) were
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those that targeted the offender as a person, consistent with Braithwaite (1989). See
Appendix A for the Coding Sheet used by the independent raters.

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In these data, examples of stigmatizing shaming (coded 4) included: “a reflection of
his upbringing or lack thereof. Hope he is not representative of Aussies at large”, “This guy
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needs to be dismissed from his Law degree and never be allowed to study Law at any Uni. He
of course should be charged with verbal assault”. An example of shaming that targeted the
offender’s behaviour (coded 3) included: “A very horrible thing for someone to say, I feel so
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sorry for the girl”. An example of a comment that was coded as not expressing any
condemnation regarding the actions of the transgressor: “I feel bad for that lady”. Inter-rater
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reliability was high, ICC = .96. Accordingly, a total severity of comment score was
calculated by averaging scores across the three raters.

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Results
Preliminary analyses. Results demonstrated that the anonymity manipulation was

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successful: participants in the anonymous condition (M = 4.63, SD = 1.85) reported feeling
more anonymous than participants in the identifiable condition (M = 3.29, SD = 1.62), t(223)
= -5.79, p < .001, d = 0.77. Table 1 displays the scale inter-correlations and descriptive
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statistics for the key dependent variables across the two experimental (anonymous vs.
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identifiable) conditions.
Participant responses. There was variation in the way participants responded to the
article. 49.3% of participants left a comment, 23.6% “shared” the article, and 18.7% “liked”
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the article. Of those that commented (N = 111), 39 participants left comments that were
classified as shaming or above, while 42 participants left a comment that was classified as
stigmatizing shaming (category 4). Thus, the majority of comments were classified as the
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highest possible severity – shaming that targeted the offender as a person.
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e d
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Table 1. Summary of means, standard deviations, and 95% confidence intervals (across conditions), and intercorrelations for key variables
(Study 1). Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Variable Identifiable (N = 112) Anonymous (N = 113)

1 2
v i e 3 4 5 6
1. Moral outrage
2. Justice concerns
5.40 (1.10)
[5.18, 5.60]
6.12 (1.04)
5.40 (1.30)
[5.18, 5.60]
6.04 (1.05)
-
.46**
r e -
3. Perceptions of deservingness
[5.92, 6.31]
4.79 (1.25)
[4.55, 5.03]
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[5.83, 6.23]
4.68 (1.27)
[4.44, 4.90]
.45** .37** -
4. Schadenfreude
5. Total (no. of) shaming responses

4.56 (1.23)
[4.32, 4.78]
1.91 (0.75)
p e4.43 (1.35)
[4.18, 4.69]
1.91 (0.75)
.30**
.05
.18**
.08
.44**
.13*
-
.26** -
t
[1.76, 2.05] [1.76, 2.05]
6. Comment severity 2.16 (1.29) 2.08 (1.21) .11 .10 .07 .23** .61** -
n o
[1.93, 2.39] [1.11, 1.28]
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e p
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Testing the hypothesized model. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was
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conducted using Amos 25.0 (Arbuckle, 2007) to test our hypothesised model. Justice
concerns was modelled as a direct predictor of perceptions of deservingness. Perceptions of
deservingness influenced shaming behaviour (comment severity and total number of shaming
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responses) via two separate pathways: moral outrage and schadenfreude. We included direct
paths from justice concerns to both shaming outcomes to explore whether there was any
direct effect of justice concerns on shaming. The error terms of moral outrage and
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schadenfreude were allowed to correlate, as were the error terms of the two shaming
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variables. To test the moderating role of anonymity we used the anonymity manipulation
(anonymous vs. identifiable) as a grouping variable in a multi-group Structural Equation

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Model (SEM). The multi-group SEM would allow us to see whether the relationships
between schadenfreude and the two shaming outcome variables, and moral outrage and the
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shaming outcomes, differed depending on whether participants were anonymous or
identifiable (Byrne, 2013).
We report several widely accepted goodness-of-fit indices to judge model fit: the
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comparative fit index (CFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the
standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). Good fit for CFI is indicated by values of
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higher than .95; and values of .08 or lower for both RMSEA and SRMR (Bentler, 2007). As
can be seen in Table 2, the initial hypothesized model did not fit the data well (Table 2,
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Model 1). Modification indices suggested that there was additional variance between justice
concerns and moral outrage that needed to be accounted for; adding this path significantly
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improved model fit (see Table 2, Model 2). This path accounted for concerns about justice
influencing moral outrage directly, over and above participants’ perceptions of deservingness.
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Table 2. Fit statistics for the hypothesized structural equation models.
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Chi-square difference
Model description χ2 (df) CFI RMSEA SRMR
test
Model 1: Theoretical model χ2 (8) = 33.84*** .91 .12 .07 -
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Model 2: Extra path from justice
χ2 (6) = 5.14 1.00 .00 .03 -
concerns to moral outrage
Model 3: All paths constrained χ2 (16) = 13.18 1.00 .00 .05 -
Model 4: Path from schadenfreude –
χ2 (15) = 13.06 1.00 .00 .05 χdiff2(1) = 0.12
comment severity released
χ2 (15) = 12.25 1.00 .00 .04 χdiff2(1) = 0.93
total responses released
Model 6: Path from moral outrage –
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χ2 (15) = 13.18 1.00 .00 .05 χdiff2(1) = 0.00
χ2 (15) = 13.18 1.00 .00 .04 χdiff2(1) = 0.00
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Note. *** p <.001.
We then fixed all the paths in the modified model to be the same across conditions, to
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test the structural relationships between variables (to test for moderation; Table 2, Model 3).
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This model with standardized path (beta) weights is shown in Figure 2. We then compared
this constrained model with a series of models in which the paths from schadenfreude to
comment severity (Model 4) and total shaming responses (Model 5), and the paths from
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moral outrage to comment severity (Model 6) and total responses (Model 7), were released
(free to vary) across condition. Releasing each path separately would allow us to isolate the
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moderation effect to a specific path (or paths). The unconstrained models were compared
with the constrained model using the chi-square test statistic, appropriate for testing nested
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models (Kline, 2011). A non-significant chi-square value supports retention of the more
parsimonious model (i.e., with the constrained paths). That is, support for the moderating role
of anonymity would be obtained if the released model(s) fit better than the model in which
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the paths were constrained to be the same (i.e., there is a significant difference between the
chi-square value of Model 3 and the released models). All other paths remained constrained
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as these relationships were predicted to remain stable across conditions.
19
Table 2 shows that the difference between the constrained (Model 3) and
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unconstrained models (Models 4-7) were not significant – indicating that the models did not
fit the data better when the hypothesized paths were allowed to differ. Thus, there was no
evidence of moderation. The relationships between schadenfreude and shaming, and moral
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outrage and shaming, were unaffected by the presence (vs. absence) of the anonymity
manipulation.
We computed indirect effects using the indirect effects command in Amos (Gaskin &
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Lim, 2018) with 10,000 bootstrap samples (95% confidence intervals) following Preacher
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and Hayes (2008). The indirect effect of justice concerns on shaming via perceptions of
deservingness and moral outrage was not significant (see Table 3 for the indirect effects for
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each pathway). However, there were significant indirect effects of justice concerns on
shaming outcomes via perceptions of deservingness and schadenfreude. Participant’s

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concerns about justice were associated with perceptions that the offender was deserving of
punishment, which was associated with feelings of pleasure seeing them suffer
(schadenfreude). Schadenfreude, in turn, was positively associated with online shaming

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behaviour (both engagement in shaming and the severity of participants’ response).

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Table 3. Indirect effects (Study 1). ***path is significant at p <.001.
Outcome: Comment severity IE 95% CI

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Justice concerns  deservingness  schadenfreude .16*** .02, .07

Justice concerns  deservingness  moral outrage .12 -.02, .02
Outcome: Total number of shaming responses
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Pr
20
ed
v iew
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Figure 3. Study 1 structural model (Table 2, Model 3: paths constrained across conditions).
Values represent standardized regression coefficients. Values to the left of the slash represent
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the standardized weights in the identifiable condition, while values to the right of the slash
represent standardized weights in the anonymous condition. *** Denotes that the path is
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significant at p <.001. Dashed lines represent non-significant paths. N.B. Residual error terms
for moral outrage and schadenfreude, and both shaming variables, respectively, were allowed
to covary.
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The results of Study 1 suggest that participants’ perceptions of deservingness and
schadenfreude played an important role in facilitating participants’ online shaming behaviour.

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The direct paths from justice concerns to the two shaming outcomes were not significant.
Interestingly, justice concerns did not influence shaming via increasing moral outrage –
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moral outrage had no significant relationship with either shaming outcome. Rather, the results
suggest that it was via participants’ perceptions that the offender in the news article was
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deserving of punishment – as well as their malicious pleasure in the offender’s suffering
(schadenfreude) – that justice concerns influenced participants’ shaming. These results
provide some initial evidence that “feeling good” at the suffering of others may play a
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relatively more prominent role in online shaming than “doing good”.
21
Contrary to our expectations, we found anonymity had no moderating effect on the
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relationships of interest. Although the manipulation successfully induced a difference in
anonymity across conditions, the mean for participants in the “identifiable” condition was
just over the midpoint of the scale, indicating that participants may have felt relatively
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anonymous even in the identifiable condition. According to the predictions of the SIDE
model, the relative anonymity of online environments should increase the likelihood that
participants attend to the social norms within a given context (Postmes & Spears, 1998b;
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Postmes et al., 2000). Thus, in Study 2 we varied the responses of other users to assess
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whether people’s participation in shaming was a result of their endorsement of wider societal
norms that condone shaming individuals who violate moral standards of behaviour – or the
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norms operating in situ (the norm presented in the form of “other participants” responses and
comments).
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Study 2
Method
Participants and design. Participants (N = 198) were recruited via Amazon’s

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Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (43.1% female; Mage = 35.24, SDage = 10.93) and received
USD$1.20 for participating. Participation was limited to residents in the United States,
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Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. As in Study 1, this study utilized a 2-cell design.
Participants were shown the same news article used in Study 1 and were randomly allocated
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to a condition that contained comments beneath the news article shaming the transgressor, or
a condition that had no comments.

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Procedure. The procedure and set up were similar to that of Study 1. In this study,
participants in the shaming comments condition were shown fourteen comments below the
news article that targeted the offender as a person (“stigmatizing shaming” according to
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Braithwaite; 1989; see Figure 4 for a screenshot of the comments in this condition).
22
Participants were then provided with the opportunity to submit a comment, “react”, or
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“share” the article. In the no comments condition, participants did not see any responses
below the news article (they were presented with the news article and directly underneath
were given the opportunity to respond).
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In this study, participants were given the option to “react” to the news article – as well
as “sharing” and commenting (as in Study 1). “Reacts” were introduced to Facebook in 2016,
letting users hold on the “Like” button to respond to content with 5 emotions: “Love”,
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“Haha”, “Wow”, “Sad” or “Angry”. Participants were again led to believe that the comments,
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“reactions” and “shares” displayed were from participants who had participated (or were
currently participating) in the study. Following this, all participants completed measures of
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justice concerns (3 items, α = .80), perceptions of deservingness (2 items, α = .76),
schadenfreude (α = .80), and moral outrage (α = .84).

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Figure 4. User interface for the shaming comments condition. Full comments were viewed
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when participants scrolled down.
23
As in Study 1, three coders (2 researchers and one independent rater – all blind to
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participant condition – rated the severity of participants’ comments in line with the coding
criteria established for Study 1 (Appendix A). Inter-rater reliability was again high (ICC
=.97) and thus a total severity of comment score was calculated by averaging scores across
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the three raters.
Results
Participant responses. Table 4 shows the means, standard deviations, and zero-order
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correlations between the key variables. In this study, 76.8% of participants left a comment
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and 89.9% “reacted” to the article. Of the participants who reacted, 0.6% “love” reacted,
2.2% “haha” reacted, 19.1% “wow” reacted, 40.4% “sad” reacted, and 33.7% “angry”
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reacted. 3.9% “liked” the article, and 37.4% shared the article to the supposed “other
participants”. Out of the participants who commented (N = 152), 48 were coded as

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“stigmatizing shaming – category 4”, 29 “shaming – category 3”, and 31 as “non-shaming”.
All other participant comments fell between these categories.

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Pr
24
Table 4. Summary of means, standard deviations, and 95% confidence intervals (across conditions), and intercorrelations for key variables,
e d
w
Study 2. Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p <.001.
Variable
1. Moral outrage
No comments (N = 95)
5.42 (1.15)
Shaming norm (N = 103)
5.19 (1.45)
1
-
v i
2
e 3 4 5 6
2. Justice concerns
[5.19, 5.67]
5.87 (1.12)
[5.65, 6.09]
[4.93, 5.45]
5.85 (1.22)
[5.61, 6.07]
r e
.56** -
4. Schadenfreude
5.29 (1.16)
[5.05, 5.54]
4.77 (1.42)
er 5.10 (1.27)
[4.81, 4.38]
4.87 (1.58)
.51**
.61**
.43**
.49**
-
.70** -

[4.48, 5.05]
2.97 (0.86)
[2.80, 3.13]
p e [4.57, 5.18]
3.11 (0.93)
[2.93, 3.28]
.19* -.01 .09 .22** -
6. Comment severity
t
2.47 (1.04)
[2.26, 2.66]
o
2.75 (1.17)
[2.54, 2.97]
.24** .17* .21* .31** .65** -
t n
ir n
e p
P r 25
Testing the hypothesized model. As in Study 1, we tested for mediation using
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structural equation modelling in IBM SPSS Amos 25. Modification indices again suggested
that model fit would significantly improve when a direct path was added from justice
concerns to moral outrage (see Table 5 for fit statistics).
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We next used multi-group structural equation modelling to test whether the presence
of shaming comments influenced the relationships between schadenfreude and shaming and
moral outrage and shaming, respectively. Condition (shaming comments, no comments) was
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the grouping variable. Model 3 shows the results for the constrained model (displayed in
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Figure 4). We compared this constrained model to four unconstrained models in which the
key paths from schadenfreude and shaming outcomes (Models 4 and 5) and moral outrage
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and shaming outcomes (Models 6 and 7) were released (free to vary) across condition. As in
Study 1, the remaining paths were held constant as these relationships were predicted to
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remain stable across conditions. Support for moderation would be obtained if the released
models had better model fit than Model 3 (evidenced by a statistically significant difference
in the chi-square statistic across models).

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Table 5. Fit statistics for the structural equation models (Study 2).
Chi square
Model description X2 (df) CFI RMSEA SRMR
difference test
Model 1: Theoretical model χ2 (10) = 94.52*** .81 .21 .09 -
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Model 2: Extra path from justice

χ2 (4) = 8.53 .99 .08 .02
Model 3: All paths constrained χ2 (16) = 31.27 .97 .07 .05 -
χ2 (15) = 29.88 .97 .07 .04 χdiff2(1) = 1.39
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χ2 (15) = 31.24 .96 .07 .05 χdiff2(1) = 0.03
χ2 (15) = 31.14 .97 .07 .05 χdiff2(1) = 0.13
χ2 (15) = 31.07 .96 .07 .05 χdiff2(1) = 0.20
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Note. *** p <.001.
26
Results revealed that the relationships between schadenfreude and shaming and moral
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outrage and shaming were unaffected by the presence or absence of stigmatizing shaming
comments.
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Table 6. Indirect effects Study 2.

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Justice concerns  deservingness  moral outrage .16* .00, .05
Note. *** p <.001, p <.05.
Contrary to the results of Study 1, there was a significant indirect effect of justice
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concerns on total number of shaming responses via deservingness and moral outrage (see
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Table 6). However, there was no indirect effect of justice concerns on the severity of
participant’s comments via deservingness and moral outrage. In line with the results of Study
1, there were significant indirect effects from justice concerns to shaming (both comment
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severity and total number of shaming responses) via perceptions of deservingness and
schadenfreude.
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Pr
27
ed
Figure 5. Path model for Study 2 (Table 5, Model 3 – all paths constrained). Values reflect
standardized regression weights. Values to the left of the slash represent the standardized
iew
weights in the no comments condition. Values to the right of the slash represent the
standardized weights in the shaming comments condition. ***Denotes that the path was
significant at p <.001. ** Denotes that the path was significant at p <.01. * Denotes that the
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path was significant at p <.05. N.B. Residual error terms for moral outrage and
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schadenfreude, and both shaming variables, respectively, were allowed to covary. Dashed
lines represent non-significant paths.
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Replicating the results of Study 1, Study 2 found evidence for perceptions of
deservingness and schadenfreude as key predictors of online shaming. Concerns about justice
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indirectly predicted shaming via participant’s perceptions that the offender was deserving of
negative consequences, and their feelings of schadenfreude regarding those consequences.

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Intriguingly, in this study, participants’ concerns about justice were associated with a
reduction in total shaming responses. Given that the zero-order correlations between justice
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and shaming (Table 4) were non-significant and/or positive, this finding represents a
suppressor effect. That is, once the effects of deservingness, outrage and schadenfreude on
shaming are accounted for, it reveals a “true” negative effect of justice concerns in these data.
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Further, in this study, moral outrage was a weak positive predictor of shaming responses –
but was not associated with the severity of participants’ shaming.

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Results showed that the presence or absence of stigmatizing shaming comments did
not influence the relationships between schadenfreude and moral outrage on participants’
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engagement in shaming or shaming severity. One possibility is that, in the no comments
condition, participant’s imagined similar responses to those in the stigmatizing condition –
28
given the ubiquitous nature of such comments in online networks. That is, in the absence of
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any comments at all below the article, participants may have defaulted to thinking about
severe forms of shaming typically seen in response to such transgressions on social media. To
account for this possibility, in Study 3 we manipulated group norms more concretely by
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providing both conditions with comments below the news article which, depending on
condition, varied in their severity.
Study 3
v
Method
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Design and participants. Study 3 again used a one-factor between-subjects design
and manipulated the comments participants viewed to create the presence of a shaming norm
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(shaming comments vs. non-shaming comments). Two hundred and two participants from the
USA were recruited online via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (49.5% female; Mage =
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37.55, SDage = 11.53) and reimbursed US$1.20 for their participation.
Procedure. The procedure and set up were similar to the first two studies.
Participants in both conditions were presented with the same doctored news article and the
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content shown beneath the article varied depending on condition. In the stigmatizing
comments condition, participants were shown the same comments used in Study 2. In the
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non-stigmatizing comments condition, the comments did not express disapproval towards the
offender, but rather sympathy for the victim or disapproval for the behaviour, rather than the
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offender as a person. Example comments include: “very troubling to know this happened on
a public bus”; “I tried wearing a scarf for 7 days in different styles and the harshest responses
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were when I looked Muslim”. Following the manipulation, participants were presented with
the full set of items used in Study 1 (all measures formed reliable scales, αrange = .78 -.95.
N.B. Moral outrage was captured by two items in this study). Comments were again rated for
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29
their severity and a mean severity score was calculated by averaging scores across the three
ed
raters (ICC = .96).
Results
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Participant responses. 83.2% left a comment (N = 168). Of these, 50 comments were
rated as stigmatising, 29 contained features of shaming, and the remaining 20 fell in between
these two categories. Accordingly, 58.9% of comments were shaming the transgressor’s
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behaviour/person). 63% of participants reacted “Angry”, 39.6% used the “Sad” react, 11.9%
“Wow”, 3% “Haha”, 1% “Love”, and 2.5% used the “Like” button.
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30
Table 7. Summary of means, standard deviations, and 95% confidence intervals (across conditions), and intercorrelations for key variables
e d
Variable Non-stigmatizing (N = 95) Stigmatizing (N = 103)
1
i
2
ew 3 4 5 6
v
1. Moral outrage 5.01 (1.67) 4.68 (1.63) -
[4.68, 5.33] [4.35, 5.01]
2. Justice concerns
5.50 (1.32)
[5.25, 5.75]
5.02 (1.48)
5.53 (1.37)
[5.27, 5.75]
5.05 (1.44)
r e .55**
.60**
-
.63** -
4. Schadenfreude
[4.73, 5.32]
4.84 (1.69)
[4.50, 5.14]
er [4.77, 5.35]
4.52 (1.74)
[4.17, 4.84]
.68** .44** .61** -
6. Comment severity
3.23 (0.81)
[3.07, 3.38]
2.65 (1.01)
p e 3.10 (0.91)
[2.91, 3.29]
2.73 (1.08)
.21*
.37**
.01
.25*
.09
.29*
.28**
.40**
-
.56** -
t
[2.47, 2.85] [2.50, 2.96]
(Study 3). Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
n o
ir n t
e p
P r 31
Testing the hypothesized model. Consistent with the approach adopted in Studies 1-
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2, our modified hypothesized model (i.e., the model with an additional direct path from
justice concerns to moral outrage was added) fit the data well (Table 8). Error terms for both
shaming outcomes and schadenfreude and moral outrage were covaried. Condition was again
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the grouping variable (non-stigmatizing comments, stigmatizing comments) for our
multigroup structural equation model. Table 8 shows the fit statistics for the three models.
Table 8 shows that there was a marginal difference between Model 3 and Model 4, p = .057.
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Figure 6 depicts the model with standardized path weights. Examination of the standardized
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weights reveals that schadenfreude was a significant predictor of the severity of shaming
when participants were shown stigmatizing comments, but not significant when participants
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were shown non-stigmatizing comments (see Figure 6).
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Table 8. Fit statistics for the structural equation models (Study 3).
Model description X2 (df) CFI RMSEA SRMR Chi square difference test
Model 1: Theoretical model χ2 (10) = 75.19 .86 .18 .08 -
Model 2: Extra path from justice -
χ2 (6) = 3.43 1.00 .00 .01
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Model 3: All paths are constrained χ2 (16) = 15.21 1.00 .00 .06 -
Model 4: Path from schadenfreude
– comment severity released
χ2 (15) = 11.59 1.00 .00 .04 χdiff2(1) = 3.62
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Model 5: Path from schadenfreude

to total responses released
χ2 (15) = 14.87 1.00 .00 .07 χdiff2(1) = 0.34
Model 6: Path from moral outrage
– comment severity released
χ2 (15) = 12.29 1.00 .00 .04 χdiff2(1) = 2.92
total number of shaming responses χ2 (15) = 14.64 1.00 .00 .06 χdiff2(1) = 0.56
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released.
Note. *** p <.001.
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Tests of the indirect effects showed that there was no significant indirect effect of
justice concerns on comment severity via deservingness and moral outrage (in line with
Study 1 and 2), and no significant indirect effect of justice concerns on total shaming
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responses via deservingness and moral outrage (confirming the results of Study 1). Consistent
32
with the results of Studies 1 and 2, there were again significant indirect effects of justice
ed
concerns on total number of shaming responses and comment severity via participants’
perceptions of deservingness and schadenfreude. See Table 9 for the indirect effects.
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Table 9. Indirect effects (Study 3).
v
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Note. ***p <.001.
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Figure 6. Study 3 structural model (model 4: path from schadenfreude – comment severity
released). Values to the left of the slash represent the standardized weights in the non-
stigmatizing comments condition. Values to the right of the slash represent standardized
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weights in the stigmatizing comments condition. ***Denotes that the path is significant at p
<.001. **Denotes that the path was significant at p <.01. Dashed lines represent non-
significant paths. N.B. Residual error terms for moral outrage and schadenfreude, and both
shaming variables, respectively, were allowed to covary.
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33
In line with Study 1 and 2, Study 3 provides support for deservingness and
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schadenfreude as key mechanisms underlying the relationship between participants’ concerns
about social justice and their participation in online shaming. Justice concerns facilitated
schadenfreude via participants’ belief that the offender was deserving of negative
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consequences. Schadenfreude, in turn, was associated with an increase in participants’ overall
engagement with the news article, as well as the severity of their comments. In this study,
there was evidence that the relationship between schadenfreude and the severity of
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participants’ comments was significant when participants viewed stigmatizing shaming
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comments – and not significant when they viewed non-stigmatizing comments – however the
overall test of moderation was marginal (p = .06) and should thus be interpreted with caution.
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General Discussion
Shaming as a means of punishing wrongdoers has a long history as a method of

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behaviour regulation (Owens, 1999). However, in recent years, the proliferation of social
networking sites has led to a revival in public shaming. In the current studies we examined
two pathways through which online shaming could occur: (1) a justice motive – whereby
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shaming is associated with participants’ concerns with restoring justice, perceptions of

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deservingness, and moral outrage, and/or (2) a hedonic motive, whereby justice concerns
increase participants’ perceptions that an offender is deserving of consequences, which is, in
turn, associated with schadenfreude when witnessing the offender receiving punishment
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(Heider; 1958; Leach et al., 2015).
Overall, three studies provide support for a primarily hedonic motive facilitating
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online shaming behaviour. Participants’ concerns about justice indirectly influenced shaming
by increasing their perception that the offender in the news article was deserving of negative
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consequences, and, in turn, their feelings of pleasure regarding those consequences. In
Studies 1 and 3, once the effects of schadenfreude were accounted for, justice concerns and
34
moral outrage had no independent positive effects on either behavioural shaming outcome. In
ed
Study 2, justice concerns had a directly negative effect on participants’ overall engagement in
shaming (a suppressor effect). In Study 2 there was evidence that moral outrage was weakly
positively associated with participants’ engagement in shaming – but not the severity of their
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shaming. However, moral outrage did not consistently emerge as a mediator in any of the
other studies.
Support for perceived deservingness and schadenfreude as key predictors of online
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shaming is consistent with recent work implicating perceptions of deservingness and
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schadenfreude as important emotional and cognitive reactions to information encountered on
social media (Cecconi et al., 2020; Wei & Lu, 2020). Further, our results confirm previous
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research emphasizing that while justice concerns are important in driving initial reactions
following real (or perceived) wrongdoing, people are also motivated by emotions that derive
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satisfaction from seeing offenders receiving costly punishment (Bernsden & Tiggemann,
2020; Greenier, 2021; Jensen, 2012; Wang et al., 2019). That is, concerns about enforcing
morally acceptable behaviour may only tell one side of the story when it comes to online
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shaming – our results suggest that people may also need to experience a sense of malicious
pleasure at a transgressor’s suffering in order to act.

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The Role of Moral Outrage in Online Shaming
Moral outrage did not consistently influence participants’ engagement in online

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shaming. Although we found the expected relationships between justice concerns,
deservingness, and moral outrage, moral outrage was only weakly positively associated with
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shaming in Study 2 – however it did not influence the severity of participant’s shaming. In
Studies 1 and 3, moral outrage had no direct effects on shaming – nor did it act as a mediator
between perceptions of deservingness and shaming.

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35
Although research has pointed to moral outrage as an important antecedent of digital
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expressions of shaming and punishment (Brady et al., 2021; Crockett, 2017), our results seem
to align with work examining the paradox of moral outrage in the Internet age. Sawaoka and
Monin (2018; see also Sawaoka & Monin, 2020) found that while isolated expressions of
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moral outrage are seen as morally justifiable, outrage shared exponentially online is often
viewed by bystanders as disproportionate and unfair. Indeed, moral outrage is an emotion that
centres around people’s perceptions of morality and arises when one believes another has
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violated their understanding of “right” and “wrong” (Jimenez-Leal & Cortissoz-Mora, 2021).
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In the collective action literature, moral outrage is consistently associated with action
designed to “right wrongs” – to reduce harm, injustice, and suffering (e.g., petitioning for the
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rights of minority groups; Thomas et al., 2009; van Zomeren et al., 2004). Given this, an
individual who experiences outrage at breaches of moral standards may view the use of
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disproportionate punishment via viral shaming as a particularly unfair and immoral course of
action. In line with this possibility, recent work by Pundak et al. (2021) found that shaming
wrongdoers online was shaped by adherence to the nonmaleficence principle – a belief that
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one should avoid inflicting harm on others (Anderson et al., 2006). However, in some cases,
commitment to the nonmaleficence principle led to increased shaming in the name of

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utilitarianism (i.e., when one believes shaming is key to preventing future harm and therefore
important for “the greater good”; Pundak et al., 2021). Accordingly, whether moral outrage is
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associated with online shaming may vary on the basis of people’s intuitive understanding of
public shaming as an effective means of achieving social justice – and lay conceptions of the
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effects of shaming itself.
Potential Moderators in An Online Environment
In Study 1 we found no evidence that anonymity interacted with schadenfreude or

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moral outrage to influence shaming. However, as discussed previously, despite a difference
36
in anonymity scores across condition, participants in the identifiable condition nevertheless
ed
reported feeling (in absolute terms) relatively anonymous. Indeed, it is likely that the online
nature of the current study contributed to participants feelings of anonymity. Thus, it would
be important for future work to provide a more detailed analysis of the role of anonymity on
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shaming behaviour in the context of studies that provide a more targeted manipulation of
anonymity. For example, manipulating “felt surveillance” by having participants believe their
comment will be viewed by a valued third-party (i.e., one’s employer) could test whether
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anonymity is related to online shaming behaviour due to a perceived lack of consequences.
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In Study 2 we found no evidence for the influence of social norms and Study 3 found
that norms had a marginal effect on only one path – the relationship between schadenfreude
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and comment severity. Schadenfreude appeared to be a significant predictor of shaming
severity when participants were exposed to stigmatizing shaming comments, compared to

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when they were exposed to non-stigmatizing comments (comments that did not shame the
transgressor). Social norms had no influence on participants’ overall engagement with the
news article (participants total number of shaming responses).

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Despite these mixed effects, the marginal effect of social norms in Study 3 provides
us with some preliminary evidence regarding the role of social influence on shaming
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behaviour. In particular, it suggests that the responses of other users may be important in
shaping the nature of shaming participants engage in – specifically, the harshness of their
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response. This possibility is consistent with work outlining the power of social influence
online, and has important implications regarding our understanding of how more malicious
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forms of shaming can emerge on social media (Brady et al., 2020; Chia, 2020; Postmes &
Spears, 1998b; Postmes et al., 2000). Importantly, if we can understand the contextual factors
that aid in the promotion of stigmatizing shaming online, we can begin to develop possible
Pr
solutions designed to address the disproportionate effects of viral outrage.
37
Limitations and Future Directions
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Our approach sought to maximise ecological validity by designing studies that
mirrored online environments. However, it is difficult to experimentally emulate (or
effectively manipulate) social norms as they operate in the real world – where there is the
iew
chance for norms to emerge and strengthen over time via people’s interaction with one
another. Indeed, in previous studies that have found support for the role of normative
influence in computer mediated communication (e.g., Spears, Lea & Lee, 1990), participants
v
were required to discuss issues via a synchronous chat program whereby norms were more
re
subtly delivered (and therefore able to emerge dynamically through participant interaction).
Thus, the strength of the evidence regarding social norms in the current studies may be due to
er
the relatively static way in which norms were manipulated – whereby participants were
shown a series of responses that they were led to believe were from “other users” and asked
pe
to respond. Accordingly, future work using paradigms more suited to capturing the dynamic
nature of social media could be used to assess how norms regarding the punishment of
transgressors may develop and shift over time.

ot
Given the largely correlational nature of the present work we cannot make any claims
regarding the direction of effects or draw any conclusions regarding causation. One particular
tn
issue regards the direction of effects between perceptions of deservingness and
schadenfreude. Wang et al. (2019) propose that rather than deservingness as an antecedent to
rin
schadenfreude, people may experience schadenfreude first, before using claims about
deservingness as a way of justifying one’s experience of malicious pleasure. Indeed, it may

ep
be that this relationship is bidirectional: perceptions of deservingness may increase one’s
experience of schadenfreude, and the experience of schadenfreude may, in turn, lead people
to endorse their belief that an offender is deserving of punishment more strongly. In the same
Pr
vein, the methods we employed here cannot disentangle whether schadenfreude precedes
38
shaming behaviour, or whether it is engagement in shaming itself that leads individuals to
ed
experience schadenfreude. Future research should therefore seek to explore the antecedents
and consequences of online shaming behaviour in a design that controls for participants’
engagement in shaming, therefore allowing for causal conclusions to be made regarding the
iew
order of effects.
We tested our theoretical model in the same context in all three studies (an instance of
Islamophobia in the West), therefore it may be that the effects we have observed here apply
v
only in this context. Accordingly, future research should seek to establish whether these
re
effects can be generalized across different kinds of transgressions that differ in their nature
and severity, as well as in diverse cultural contexts – given the use and the effects of public
er
shaming and shame differ across collectivist and individualist countries (Wong & Tsai,
2007). Further, future studies could explore whether online shaming is influenced by certain
pe
aspects of the transgressor. Feather and Sherman (2002) found evidence that the perceived
social status of the target influences people’s experience of schadenfreude. Participants
experienced greater schadenfreude when they witnessed a high achiever suffer compared to
ot
an average achiever – a phenomenon referred to as “tall poppy syndrome” (Feather 1989;
1991). Ronson (2015) notes that in the case of Justine Sacco – a PR manager who gained
tn
infamy in 2013 when one of her tweets went viral – public anger may have been fuelled by
her status as a privileged white New Yorker, but also as a woman. Indeed, research has found
rin
that women are more likely to be the targets of online shaming (MacPherson & Kerr, 2020;
Muir et al., 2021). Testing the influence of such moderators (i.e., social status, gender, race,
ep
sexual orientation) remain important avenues for future research.
Finally, it is a strength of the present research that participants’ comments were
analysed using an existing framework outlining different responses to wrongdoing

Pr
(Braithwaite, 1989). Coding the content of participants’ responses allowed us to capture
39
increasing severity in participants’ shaming according to how they communicated their
ed
disapproval (i.e., whether the offender was considered a good person who did a bad thing, or
a bad person unworthy of forgiveness; Braithwaite, 2000, p. 282). However, as highlighted
above, shaming can encompass a range of behaviours ranging in severity. Thus, examining
iew
when people will choose to leave a comment condemning a transgressor for their behaviour
versus when they will work with other online users to uncover personal information about the
target (i.e., when online actions move into offline harassment) is worthy of future
v
investigation. Exploring the link between “low level” actions such as “liking” content and
re
more hostile actions has important implications for our understanding of how online shaming
can spiral out of control – and may provide important insights into contextual factors that can
er
be used to create safer online environments.
Conclusion
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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
ot
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
tn
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

rin
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.
ep
Pr
40
Funding
ed
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial,
or not-for-profit sectors.
iew
Declaration of interest
The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest
v
Research and publication ethics
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This research project has been approved by [anonymized for peer review].
Data availability
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The data that support the findings of this study are available at
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https://osf.io/nr69m/?view_only=466a79bf3d4346598f873736bf502a37
ot
tn
rin
ep
Pr
41
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Appendix A
Coding Guide for Qualitative Comments
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1 - No comment N/A
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2 – Benign (Non-shaming) - No condemnation
- No targeting of behaviour or person
e.g.
• omg
• this is sad
v
• how upsetting
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3 – Shaming features - Features of shaming present
- Expresses disapproval
- Targets behaviour
- Condemns the behaviour
e.g.
er
• Sickening behaviour
• what a terrible thing to do
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4 – Stigmatizing shaming - Targets the person
- Condemns the person
- Labels the person as evil
- Undermines the person’s character
- Disrespectful of the person (insults, verbal
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abuse, name-calling).
e.g.
• what a disgusting person
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• he/she should be punished

• what an idiot
Note: May include general assertions that do

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not specifically target the person or the

behaviour, e.g., absolutely disgusting.
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Doing Good or Feeling Good Justice Concerns Predict Online Shaming Via Deservingness

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aSchool of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

bCollege of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University

Word Count (including text and notes): 9844

Keywords: online shaming; schadenfreude; deservingness; social justice; moral outrage

Word Count: 9844

Keywords: online shaming; schadenfreude; deservingness; social justice; moral outrage

specifically, as a form of malicious pleasure at another’s misfortune (schadenfreude). We

featuring an instance of Islamophobia and given the opportunity to respond. Participants’

The arrival of “pandemic shaming” on social media following the outbreak of

photo to a male classmate (Schrobsdorff, 2015).

Despite growing evidence of the harmful consequences of online shaming (e.g.,

of Islamophobia depicted on an online news site.

Doing Good: Online Shaming Arising from the Justice Motive

In the monograph So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Ronson (2016) interviews

individuals who have previously participated in online shaming. Consistently, participants

of negative consequences (the notion of a transgressor receiving their “just deserts”;

Carlsmith et al., 2002).

deservingness would be accompanied by feelings of moral outrage regarding the behaviour

important in uniting people to act together to promote justice for disadvantaged or

motivated by concerns about justice, it could be understood to be analogous to online

is deserving of punishment, and associated moral outrage regarding their actions.

experiencing spite and schadenfreude – the feeling of pleasure, joy, or satisfaction at

2015). In contrast, the experience of schadenfreude is unique in that it primarily occurs

Similarly, schadenfreude is stronger when we evaluate a person as responsible and deserving

schadenfreude is an emotion that captures feelings of delight at observing a perpetrator being

schadenfreude is related to the activation of reward centres in the brain (Rodríguez-Gómez et

of comments posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram concerning contentious political

schadenfreude” – schadenfreude resulting from the belief that another’s misfortune is

individuals online, and the social influence of other online users.

An inherent feature of online communication platforms is that individuals are

adolescents who engaged in cyberbullying reported feeling anonymous and “seemingly

participant’s perception that online vigilantism was socially acceptable.

justice motive), and/or the relationship between justice concerns, deservingness,

The Present Research and Proposed Model

experience of schadenfreude (malicious pleasure in watching another’s misfortune) mediates

Figure 1. Theoretical Model of Online Shaming via a Justice or Hedonic Motive.

Participants were presented with a (fabricated) news article about an instance of

schadenfreude. Participants’ comments were content analysed for evidence of shaming.

Operationalizing Online Shaming Behaviour

People can engage in a wide variety of strategies to condemn perceived norm

2021, p. 1; see also Loveluck, 2020; Sawaoka & Monin, 2018).

(1989) theory of reintegrative vs stigmatizing shaming to identify whether participants

comments could be classified as “shaming”. According to Braithwaite (1989), stigmatising

Participants were presented with a news article depicting an instance of Islamophobia

users”) would be identified by randomized usernames, or by participants entering their full

Participants and design. Participants were 225 students at an Australian university

approximately 200 participants (a minimum of 40 participants per cell1).

Procedure. Participants accessed the study online by clicking on a Qualtrics survey

definition of stigmatizing shaming (shaming with the intention of condemning the

transgressor as a person), the majority of these comments expressed condemnation that

he should be thrown out of uni” 2.

To manipulate anonymity, participants in the anonymous condition (N = 113) were

condition had a series of randomized usernames attached. In the identifiable condition (N =

the identifiable condition).

Participants were invited to respond to the article by submitting a comment, “liking”,

and measures of justice concerns, moral outrage, deservingness, and schadenfreude.

regarding the authenticity of the news article and comments.

indicate being higher on the particular construct.

out for their behaviour in a public way”, α = .80.

what has occurred”, α = .82.

Behavioural measures of shaming. As anticipated above, two shaming measures