The Psychology of Internet Trolls/Bullies

[Black Orchid]

Psychological studies show trolls tend to be male, show higher levels of psychopathy traits — low levels of empathy, guilt and responsibility for their actions — and higher levels of sadism traits, the enjoyment of causing others physical and psychological pain.

Trolls are also motivated by what psychologists call "atypical social rewards".

Generally, people are motivated by creating a positive social environment (typical, positive social rewards).

But trolls show higher motivation to achieve negative social rewards, like creating social mayhem and disruption.

We wondered if different types of empathy could explain such seemingly pointless, harmful behaviour.

In our sample of 415 online participants, we assessed relationships between common trolling behaviours (for instance, "although some people think my posts/comments are offensive, I think they are funny") and two different forms of empathy: cognitive and affective.

Cognitive and affective empathy
Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognise and understand other people's emotions. But affective empathy is the ability to experience and internalise other people's emotions.

Put simply, cognitive empathy is the ability to predict how another person will feel and affective empathy is sharing the emotional experience.

As expected, people who were more likely to troll had significantly lower levels of affective empathy.

Surprisingly, people with high levels of cognitive empathy and psychopathic traits were more likely to troll.

In other words, their high level of cognitive empathy indicates they are very good at understanding what hurts people, and their high level of psychopathy means they simply don't care.

Can we teach empathy?
One area to change behaviour might be to teach trolls to become more empathic, in particular, targeting their low levels of affective empathy.

There's strong evidence structured empathy training improves people's empathy.

Unfortunately, interventions targeting psychopathy and more severe, clinical empathy deficits are far more complex.

Most mental health experts say psychopathy cannot be cured. However, as trolls show higher levels of nonclinical psychopathy traits (not enough to meet criteria for a clinical disorder) interventions may be more successful.

One psychopathy intervention that has previously indicated success in reducing antisocial behaviour and criminal activity is the decompression model.

Here, people are rewarded for every positive, prosocial behaviour (behaviour that benefits another), with the aim of increasing and reinforcing good behaviour.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-13/t ... re/8701424

[Black Orchid]

In this month's issue of Personality and Individual Differences, a study was published that confirms what we all suspected: Internet trolls are horrible people.

Let's start by getting our definitions straight: An Internet troll is someone who comes into a discussion and posts comments designed to upset or disrupt the conversation. Often, in fact, it seems like there is no real purpose behind their comments except to upset everyone else involved. Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and offend to get a response.

What kind of person would do this? Some Canadian researchers decided to find out.

They conducted two online studies with over 1,200 people, giving personality tests to each subject along with a survey about their Internet commenting behavior. They were looking for evidence that linked trolling with the "Dark Tetrad" of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism.

They found that Dark Tetrad scores were highest among people who said trolling was their favorite Internet activity. To get an idea of how much more prevalent these traits were among Internet trolls, see this figure from the paper:

Look at how low the Dark Tetrad scores are for everyone except the trolls! Their scores for all four traits soar on the chart. The relationship between trolling and the Dark Tetrad is so significant that the authors write in their paper:

"... the associations between sadism and GAIT (Global Assessment of Internet Trolling) scores were so strong that it might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists." [emphasis added]

Trolls truly enjoy making you feel bad. To quote the authors once more (because this is a truly quotable article): "Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun ... and the Internet is their playground!"

The next time you encounter a troll online, remember:

1. These trolls are some truly difficult people.
2. It is your suffering that brings them pleasure, so the best thing you can do is ignore them.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog ... nd-sadists