The banality of evil: study finds internet trolls to be psychopaths
September 20, 2014
Internet trolls, as it turns out, are truly terrible people. At least that’s what a study published in this month’s issue of Personality and Individual Differences suggests. The study defined an “internet troll” as someone who acts “in a deceptive, destructive, or disruptive manner in a social setting on the Internet,” for no other reason than their own enjoyment.
Psychology Today published an article on Thursday explaining that the Canadian researchers behind the study administered a survey to over 1,200 people in order to gain a better understanding of what compels some people to act like a “troll.” The test was designed to weigh responses against the “Dark Tetrad,” a grouping of personality traits that combine to make a particularly nasty person. While the “Dark Tetrad” usually only includes four, or in some cases three traits, the researchers were specifically looking for Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, direct sadism and indirect sadism.
The researchers found that the subjects who listed “trolling” as their preferred internet activity to easily scored the highest for possessing the Dark Tetrad (or in this case Pentad). A graph published in the Psychology Today article shows that “trolls” demonstrated the Dark Tetrad at least three times more prevalently than others. Granted, the test was looking for people who listed “trolling” as their “favorite” social activity on the internet, so it is unlikely that everyone who leaves needlessly disparaging comments on your favorite Youtube video is a legitimate psychopath.
The researchers took a fairly disheartened stance towards their results, stating “It was sadism, however, that had the most robust associations with trolling of any of the personality measures.” The psychologists referred to the “trolls” as “agents of chaos” how press hard on “hot-button issues” to incite others and feed off emotional replies to further the abuse. The Independent reported that the most frightening part of the report is possibly the psychologists conclusion that “internet trolling” is an “internet manifestation of everyday sadism,” and not just some sorry side-effect of the internet.
