Registered Report: Schadenfreude’s Effect on Information Sharing about the Unjust

Abstract

Justice-type Schadenfreude is a pleasant emotion that is evoked subsequent to the feeling that the misfortune of others was justified. This study examined whether justice-type Schadenfreude is related to gossiping about unjust people by means of a scenario-based experiment. The results of the analysis of data from 162 Japanese undergraduate students enrolled suggested that justice-type Schadenfreude was not associated with the intention to share information about unjust people.