Everyday sadists take pleasure in others' pain

Laura

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Before you read the article, answer this question: Which of the following would you rather do?

killing bugs,
helping the experimenter kill bugs,
cleaning dirty toilets,
enduring pain from ice water

http://www.sott.net/article/266289-Dark-Tetrad-of-personality-traits-Everyday-sadists-take-pleasure-in-others-pain

Most of the time, we try to avoid inflicting pain on others - when we do hurt someone, we typically experience guilt, remorse, or other feelings of distress. But for some, cruelty can be pleasurable, even exciting. New research suggests that this kind of everyday sadism is real and more common than we might think.

Two studies led by psychological scientist Erin Buckels of the University of British Columbia revealed that people who score high on a measure of sadism seem to derive pleasure from behaviors that hurt others, and are even willing to expend extra effort to make someone else suffer.

The new findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"Some find it hard to reconcile sadism with the concept of 'normal' psychological functioning, but our findings show that sadistic tendencies among otherwise well-adjusted people must be acknowledged," says Buckels. "These people aren't necessarily serial killers or sexual deviants but they gain some emotional benefit in causing or simply observing others' suffering."

Based on their previous work on the "Dark Triad" of personality, Buckels and colleagues Delroy Paulhus of the University of British Columbia and Daniel Jones of the University of Texas El Paso surmised that sadism is a distinct aspect of personality that joins with three others - psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism - to form a "Dark Tetrad" of personality traits.

To test their hypothesis, they decided to examine everyday sadism under controlled laboratory conditions. They recruited 71 participants to take part in a study on "personality and tolerance for challenging jobs." Participants were asked to choose among several unpleasant tasks: killing bugs, helping the experimenter kill bugs, cleaning dirty toilets, or enduring pain from ice water.

Participants who chose bug killing were shown the bug-crunching machine: a modified coffee grinder that produced a distinct crunching sound so as to maximize the gruesomeness of the task. Nearby were cups containing live pill bugs, each cup labeled with the bug's name: Muffin, Ike, and Tootsie.

The participant's job was to drop the bugs into the machine, force down the cover, and "grind them up." The participants didn't know that a barrier actually prevented the bugs from being ground up and that no bugs were harmed in the experiment.

Of the 71 participants, 12.7% chose the pain-tolerance task, 33.8% chose the toilet-cleaning task, 26.8% chose to help kill bugs, and 26.8% chose to kill bugs.

Participants who chose bug killing had the highest scores on a scale measuring sadistic impulses, just as the researchers predicted. The more sadistic the participant was, the more likely he or she was to choose bug killing over the other options, even when their scores on Dark Triad measures, fear of bugs, and sensitivity to disgust were taken into account.

Participants with high levels of sadism who chose to kill bugs reported taking significantly greater pleasure in the task than those who chose another task, and their pleasure seemed to correlate with the number of bugs they killed, suggesting that sadistic behavior may hold some sort of reward value for those participants.

And a second study revealed that, of the participants who rated high on one of the "dark" personality traits, only sadists chose to intensify blasts of white noise directed at an innocent opponent when they realized the opponent wouldn't fight back. They were also the only ones willing to expend additional time and energy to be able to blast the innocent opponent with the noise.

Together, these results suggest that sadists possess an intrinsic motivation to inflict suffering on innocent others, even at a personal cost - a motivation that is absent from the other dark personality traits.

The researchers hope that these new findings will help to broaden people's view of sadism as an aspect of personality that manifests in everyday life, helping to dispel the notion that sadism is limited to sexual deviants and criminals.

Buckels and colleagues are continuing to investigate everyday sadism, including its role in online trolling behavior.

"Trolling culture is unique in that it explicitly celebrates sadistic pleasure, or 'lulz,'" says Buckels. "It is, perhaps, not surprising then that sadists gravitate toward those activities."

And they're also exploring vicarious forms of sadism, such as enjoying cruelty in movies, video games, and sports.

The researchers believe their findings have the potential to inform research and policy on domestic abuse, bullying, animal abuse, and cases of military and police brutality.

"It is such situations that sadistic individuals may exploit for personal pleasure," says Buckels. "Denying the dark side of personality will not help when managing people in these contexts."

My answer to the question, even before I read the article, was "I'd rather clean toilets. At least that is making the world a better and cleaner place."
 
Laura said:
Before you read the article, answer this question: Which of the following would you rather do?

killing bugs,
helping the experimenter kill bugs,
cleaning dirty toilets,
enduring pain from ice water

Immediately, it's "cleaning dirty toilets" as it's something that I found enjoyable to do for others and for myself.

The first two jumped at me as enjoying killing and the last is enjoying pain, all of which is just mind-bogging to choose. Then, I read the article which made sense and quite evident in everywhere we see in this world.
 
Laura said:
My answer to the question, even before I read the article, was "I'd rather clean toilets. At least that is making the world a better and cleaner place."

Before I read the article I couldn't honestly answer because I felt I needed more information. Like, could "killing bugs" have involved using a spray to kill a mosquito infestation for example? So I figured the list at the beginning needed to be more specific. But after reading what was involved, I would have chosen cleaning toilets!
 
Laura said:
Before you read the article, answer this question: Which of the following would you rather do?

killing bugs,
helping the experimenter kill bugs,
cleaning dirty toilets,
enduring pain from ice water

I'd clean the toilets.
 
Perceval said:
Before I read the article I couldn't honestly answer because I felt I needed more information. Like, could "killing bugs" have involved using a spray to kill a mosquito infestation for example? So I figured the list at the beginning needed to be more specific.

Exactly! I don't like the vague "What would you do?" quizzes that don't give details either. If the bugs were Dung Beetles you could just put them in the dirty toilet and then everyone's happy, including the bugs.

If the only option for not hurting a HARMLESS critter is to clean toilets, then yeah. you clean toilets, but like you noted, what if the bugs are a threat...wasps, termites, etc?

A lot of these "studies" look like they're rigged to provoke a desired response.
 
Well, it was a no-brainer for me. I picked cleaning toilets, then read the article.

I figured that no matter the kind of bug being killed, cleaning a toilet didn't involve inflicting pain on anything else, anyone else, or myself. And then the world would be a bit cleaner!

ADDED: And if it was a venomous or otherwise deadly insect, so what? If given the chance, it might try to kill me, but then I might try to kill it, too. But if the critter is inside a container and not threatening me, why kill it?
 
Mr. Scott said:
ADDED: And if it was a venomous or otherwise deadly insect, so what? If given the chance, it might try to kill me, but then I might try to kill it, too. But if the critter is inside a container and not threatening me, why kill it?

Exactly! They don't say "Kill bugs inside a container" because then they wouldn't get the results, or numbers, they're looking for? If they're in a container, then why isn't "Move bugs to a safe location and release them" on the list? They also assume that ice water is "painful" when it's actually enjoyable to some people. It looks to me like they're trying to manipulate the results by the way they word their questions.
 
I also chose cleaning toilets because none of the other options were activities I would want to do. Plus, cleaning toilets is an everyday activity that I do anyway.
 
Zadius Sky said:
Immediately, it's "cleaning dirty toilets" as it's something that I found enjoyable to do for others and for myself.

The first two jumped at me as enjoying killing and the last is enjoying pain, all of which is just mind-bogging to choose. Then, I read the article which made sense and quite evident in everywhere we see in this world.

Same here.
 
I wasn't trying to outthink or second guess the parameters of the questions. I just took them as they were posed:

killing bugs,
helping the experimenter kill bugs,
cleaning dirty toilets,
enduring pain from ice water

I always give myself permission to change my mind with additional data, but the question was simple and the answer was easy.

Even if the job was helping with exterminating a dangerous infestation of some kind of nasty bug, I'd still rather clean toilets. Sure, if there were no toilets to clean as an option, and I was needed to help, I would spray bugs, no problem. I spray bugs when I see them harming a plant, or if they come into the house and cause problems. But even then, I do NOT like doing it. And some bugs, I rescue, like spiders and innocent crawlapins that I occasionally encounter.
 
SovereignDove said:
I also chose cleaning toilets because none of the other options were activities I would want to do. Plus, cleaning toilets is an everyday activity that I do anyway.

Me too! As soon as i had read the question there was only one answer. If only i can get rid of my fear of creepy crawlies. :/
 
Zadius Sky said:
Laura said:
Before you read the article, answer this question: Which of the following would you rather do?

killing bugs,
helping the experimenter kill bugs,
cleaning dirty toilets,
enduring pain from ice water

Immediately, it's "cleaning dirty toilets" as it's something that I found enjoyable to do for others and for myself.

The first two jumped at me as enjoying killing and the last is enjoying pain, all of which is just mind-bogging to choose. Then, I read the article which made sense and quite evident in everywhere we see in this world.

I don't know if the last implies enjoying pain (I'm sure that for some people it does), it states enduring pain. So I would go for the last two depending
on what both of them implied. For instance if it was cleaning 5 toilets vs. 1 cold shower I'd go for the shower.
 
Anthony said:
I don't know if the last implies enjoying pain (I'm sure that for some people it does), it states enduring pain. So I would go for the last two depending
on what both of them implied. For instance if it was cleaning 5 toilets vs. 1 cold shower I'd go for the shower.

I had a similar thought and chose the ice treatment since it's beneficial (cryotherapy) although it's not always easy to endure. :cry:
 
Mr. Scott said:
Well, it was a no-brainer for me. I picked cleaning toilets, then read the article.

I figured that no matter the kind of bug being killed, cleaning a toilet didn't involve inflicting pain on anything else, anyone else, or myself. And then the world would be a bit cleaner!

ADDED: And if it was a venomous or otherwise deadly insect, so what? If given the chance, it might try to kill me, but then I might try to kill it, too. But if the critter is inside a container and not threatening me, why kill it?

Same for me ... whenever a critter (so far, knock on wood, non-threatening) is found inside the residence, I make every effort to safely and harmlessly allow it to be temporarily detained and taken outside ... maybe TMI (Too Much Information :P), but, likewise, if I'm using a toilet, whether in residence or elsewhere, that is messy, I'll usually do brief cleans with toilet paper / wipes, both before and after ... I must confess, however, that if cockroaches were ever to be found inside the house (as experienced at times in earlier years), I would be merciless and do a trap and release into toilet bowl with a flush, unless it were a bigger infestation [ :phaser: ] :P
 
My answer is cleaning the toilets. But: if the bugs are on my dog, for example, I would choose killing them. No remorse at all.
 
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