Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People"
Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic.
That’s bad, but it’s nothing compared with what a new psychology paper has to say about the personalities of trolls themselves.
The research, conducted by Erin Buckels of the University of Manitoba and two colleagues, sought to directly investigate whether
people who engage in trolling are characterized by personality traits that fall in the so-called Dark Tetrad:
Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others),
narcissism (egotism and self-obsession),
psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and
sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others).
It is hard to underplay the results: The study found correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits
and trolling behavior. What’s more, it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism)
and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet.
I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz.
I like to troll people in forums or the comments section of websites.
I enjoy griefing other players in multiplayer games.
The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt.Yes, some people actually say they agree with such statements. And again, doing so was correlated with sadism
in its various forms, with psychopathy, and with Machiavellianism. Overall, the authors found that the relationship
between sadism and trolling was the strongest, and that indeed, sadists appear to troll because they find it pleasurable.
"Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others," they wrote.
"Sadists just want to have fun ... and the Internet is their playground!"
