“Fruit fight”: Schadenfreude and “Word-of-Mouth” among consumer groups

The present study investigates when young BlackBerry-users experience schadenfreude and engage in Word-of-Mouth after reading negative news about Apple’s iPhone. The results show that social identification with other BlackBerry-users and domain relevance interactively predict schadenfreude; the more important owning a smartphone is for an individual, the more identification with other BlackBerry-users increases the level of schadenfreude towards iPhone-users. Furthermore, hostile feelings towards the rival consumer group elicited higher levels of schadenfreude, which, in turn, led to a stronger intention to engage in negative Word-of-Mouth. These findings suggest that schadenfreude plays an important role in consumer behavior.