When internet users publicly shame or expose perceived wrongdoers, their support for these actions is often tied to the pleasure they get from seeing others suffer and a desire to show off their own moral superiority. A recent survey of 1,000 adults shows that people who view internet justice as effective tend to report greater emotional rewards and status-seeking motives. The findings were published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
Online vigilantism occurs when internet users band together to expose, criticize, or punish individuals they believe have broken social rules. This behavior often happens completely outside of formal legal systems. Typical actions include public shaming, group harassment, and doxing, which is the act of publishing private or identifying information about someone without their permission. Digital platforms provide unique conditions for these behaviors, offering anonymity and a vast audience. These features allow collective punishments to spread rapidly and permanently, sometimes leading to what researchers call a social death for the target.
Researchers Dosun Kim and Yeon Soo Kim, both criminologists at Dongguk University in Seoul, designed the current study to explore the psychological traits behind these behaviors. While past research has focused on the legal and structural features of internet justice, few studies have explored why individual users actually support these digital punishments. The investigators wanted to see if specific emotional and motivational traits influence how effective people think internet justice is. They focused on understanding the subjective evaluations users make when watching or participating in online shaming.
To do this, they examined two specific psychological concepts: schadenfreude and moral grandstanding. Schadenfreude is a German term that describes the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction someone gets when they witness another person’s misfortune or adversity. In an online context, this might look like enjoying the downfall of a public figure who broke a social rule. Moral grandstanding refers to a person’s tendency to use moral arguments primarily to boost their own social status or self-image. Grandstanding is an effort to manage how others perceive you during public interactions.
The researchers split moral grandstanding into two categories. Prestige-seeking grandstanding happens when someone wants others to recognize them as a good, morally sensitive person. Dominance-seeking grandstanding occurs when someone wants to exert influence, assert authority, or shame those who disagree with them. By examining these traits, the researchers hoped to understand if support for online vigilantism comes from a genuine desire for justice or a personal need for emotional rewards and social signaling.
The investigators recruited a representative sample of 1,000 adults living in South Korea. The participants answered survey questions about their experiences with internet justice, their feelings of schadenfreude, and their tendencies toward both prestige-seeking and dominance-seeking moral grandstanding. The participants also rated how effective they believed internet vigilantism was at achieving social justice, deterring bad behavior, and making up for the limits of the legal system.
The researchers divided the participants into three categories based on their reported behavior. Non-participants had no experience with online vigilantism. Passive participants had viewed or searched for content that criticized rule-breakers. Active participants had taken direct action, such as sharing someone’s personal information, writing accusatory comments, or creating critical posts.
First, the researchers compared the average scores across the three groups. They found that active participants reported significantly higher levels of schadenfreude, prestige-seeking grandstanding, and belief in the effectiveness of online vigilantism than both other groups. Non-participants scored lowest on schadenfreude and perceived effectiveness, but scored slightly higher than passive participants on prestige-seeking grandstanding. The pattern for dominance-seeking grandstanding was slightly different, with passive participants scoring lower than both active participants and non-participants.
Next, the researchers conducted statistical analyses within each group to see how the psychological traits connected to their views on digital justice. Among active participants, the team found that higher levels of schadenfreude and prestige-seeking grandstanding were linked to a stronger belief that internet vigilantism is effective. This means that people who actively participate in online shaming and find it effective often enjoy seeing others suffer and want to be recognized for their moral stance.
The researchers then looked at the passive participants. The findings in this group mirrored the active group. Higher levels of schadenfreude and prestige-seeking grandstanding were associated with viewing online vigilantism as a successful tool. Even though these individuals only consumed the content rather than creating it, their support for the practice was tied to similar emotional and status-seeking motives.
The non-participant group showed a different pattern. For these individuals, schadenfreude was still linked to believing in the effectiveness of internet justice. However, instead of prestige-seeking grandstanding, dominance-seeking grandstanding was associated with their support for online vigilantism. The researchers suggest that some people who do not participate directly might still like the idea of internet justice because it symbolically punishes rule-breakers and affirms their own moral superiority from a safe distance.
Finally, the investigators ran an analysis comparing all the groups together to see if the differences in their motives held up statistically. They found that the overall interaction across the groups was not statistically significant. However, specific calculations within the model suggested that the connection between dominance-seeking grandstanding and support for online vigilantism was stronger among non-participants than among the other two groups. The researchers described this specific result as exploratory, noting that it requires further investigation due to the small size of the non-participant group.
The study relies on self-reported survey data taken at a single point in time, which means the researchers cannot determine cause and effect. It is entirely possible that participating in online vigilantism increases a person’s feelings of schadenfreude, rather than the other way around. Participants might also have adjusted their answers to appear more socially acceptable, a common issue in psychological surveys.
The measure of perceived effectiveness does not mean that online vigilantism actually works to deter crime or bring about justice. It only captures the subjective opinions of the users. The sample was restricted to adults in South Korea, meaning the psychological patterns might look different in other cultural contexts or on different social media platforms.
Future studies could use experimental designs or track actual online behavior over time to clarify how these psychological traits interact with digital shaming. Researchers could also explore whether similar patterns emerge across different legal systems and specific social media networks. This would help untangle the motives behind internet justice in a broader global context.
The study, “Perceived effectiveness of online vigilantism: The role of schadenfreude and moral grandstanding,” was authored by Dosun Kim and Yeon Soo Kim.