When witnessing misfortunes, people sometimes react with schadenfreude—malicious pleasure at another's suffering. Previous research suggests that schadenfreude is elicited for competitors and envied targets, or when misfortunes seem deserved. Six experiments (five pre-registered, N_total = 3324) support a novel hypothesis that perceivers feel greater schadenfreude for social targets who endorse a strong general belief in a just world (BJW), even when misfortunes occur outside of the typical conditions that elicit schadenfreude. Experiments 1–2 show that people feel schadenfreude at the accidental misfortune of a person who expresses strong BJW, based in part on their misfortune seeming more deserved. Experiment 3 demonstrates the same effect for a wealthy, strong-BJW target who suffers a life-changing misfortune. In Experiment 4, we demonstrate that perceivers infer stronger BJW from a wealthy (vs. poor) person and that these inferences lead to increased perceptions that the misfortune was deserved, resulting in greater schadenfreude. Finally, Experiments 5–6 show that the effect of target BJW on schadenfreude via perceived deservingness is moderated by a target's financial status, such that endorsing strong BJW is particularly consequential for wealthy and middle-income targets. We conclude that even when people are not responsible for their predicaments, perceivers believe the misfortunes of people with strong just-world beliefs are more fitting and therefore derive more pleasure at their expense. The current research builds on and extends both schadenfreude and just-world belief literatures by documenting a unique antecedent of schadenfreude based on perceivers' inferences or knowledge regarding how someone generally views their world.

当目睹不幸时，人们有时会以幸灾乐祸的方式做出反应——恶意取悦他人的痛苦。先前的研究表明，幸灾乐祸是针对竞争对手和嫉妒的目标，或者当不幸似乎是应得的时候。六个实验（五个预注册，共N_个 = 3324）支持一个新颖的假设，即即使不幸发生在导致幸灾乐祸的典型条件之外，感知者也会对支持对公正世界（BJW）的强烈普遍信念的社会目标感到更大的幸灾乐祸。实验 1-2 表明，人们对表达强烈 BJW 的人的意外不幸感到幸灾乐祸，部分原因是他们的不幸似乎更应得。实验 3 展示了对于遭受改变生活不幸的富有、强大的 BJW 目标的相同效果。在实验 4 中，我们证明感知者从富人（相对于穷人）推断出更强的 BJW，并且这些推断会导致人们认为不幸是应得的，从而导致更大的幸灾乐祸。最后，实验 5-6 表明，目标 BJW 通过感知应得性对幸灾乐祸的影响受到目标财务状况的缓和，因此认可强大的 BJW 对富裕和中等收入目标尤其重要。我们得出的结论是，即使人们不对自己的困境负责，感知者也相信拥有强烈正义世界信念的人的不幸更合适，因此会以牺牲他们为代价获得更多的快乐。目前的研究建立在并扩展了幸灾乐祸和公正世界信仰的文献，基于感知者对某人一般如何看待他们的世界的推断或知识，记录了幸灾乐祸的独特前因。因此，支持强大的 BJW 对富裕和中等收入目标尤其重要。我们得出的结论是，即使人们不对自己的困境负责，感知者也相信拥有强烈正义世界信念的人的不幸更合适，因此会以牺牲他们为代价获得更多的快乐。目前的研究建立在并扩展了幸灾乐祸和公正世界信仰的文献，基于感知者对某人一般如何看待他们的世界的推断或知识，记录了幸灾乐祸的独特前因。因此，支持强大的 BJW 对富裕和中等收入目标尤其重要。我们得出的结论是，即使人们不对自己的困境负责，感知者也相信拥有强烈正义世界信念的人的不幸更合适，因此会以牺牲他们为代价获得更多的快乐。目前的研究建立在并扩展了幸灾乐祸和公正世界信仰的文献，基于感知者对某人一般如何看待他们的世界的推断或知识，记录了幸灾乐祸的独特前因。