Justiţia imanentă şi percepţia responsabilităţii în trăirea bucuriei maliţioase şi compasiunii
Immanent justice and the perception of responsibility in experiencing malicious joy and compassion

Summary/Abstract: In our daily lives, we frequently evaluate the causes for the successes and failures of other people. The purpose of this study was to analyze how the belief in immanent justice and the information about somebody’s past achievement determine the emotions of malicious joy (Schadenfreude) and compassion. We used a quasi‑experimental design applied on 205 students. They were presented with a story about a student who had achieved a certain thing, an achievement for which he had or had not been responsible (prologue). Later on, this student registered a failure (epilogue). The participants assessed the extent to which the protagonist of the story had deserved the failure, and the intensity of their emotions of malicious joy and compassion related to this failure. The results have partially confirmed our research hypotheses. The explanations are based on the Belief in Just World Theory (Lerner, 1980) and on the Deservingness Theory (Feather, 1999). In the conclusion of this paper we discuss one future development of the research – the role of social identity in thedynamic of social justice.

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