Schadenfreude and Sympathy: Observer Reactions to Malicious Joy During Social Media Service Recovery

Complex social dynamics occur when complaints are voiced on firms’ social media channels. In combination, a complainer criticizes a firm, which may be responded to uncivilly by different online personas (i.e., internet trolls or loyal customers), with virtually present observers watching how a firm responds. This research examines customer-to-customer (C2C) uncivil commentary from troll and loyal customer personas perceived by observers to elicit schadenfreude (malicious joy due to another's adverse event). Three studies show how C2C schadenfreude targeting a complainer elicits sympathy from observers, which influences observers’ future purchase intent. Study 1's online content analysis using field data shows the frequency of C2C schadenfreude during social media service recovery. Study 2 uncovers moderated mediation of C2C schadenfreude–sympathy–purchase intent, with loyal customer persona comments producing more observer sympathy than troll persona comments. Study 3 finds the harmful effect of observer sympathy on purchase intent varies based on how or if a firm addresses the C2C dialogue. This research uses a novel cognition (perceived schadenfreude from another's comment), examines a lesser-studied emotion in marketing (sympathy), and is the first marketing-related work to incorporate backlash theory from organizational management to exemplify how loyal customer comments produce a backlash effect in observers.