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Chris
09-21-2014, 07:43 PM
New study combines the Dark Triad of Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy with Sadism as the Dard Tetrad.

Internet Trolls Are Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Sadists (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists)


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, 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?

Canadian researchers decided to find out. They conducted two internet studies with over 1,200 people. They gave 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: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadistic personality.

...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, check out this figure from the paper:

http://i.snag.gy/pnKZ5.jpg

...


Abstract of paper, Trolls just want to have fun (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886914000324):


In two online studies (total N = 1215), respondents completed personality inventories and a survey of their Internet commenting styles. Overall, strong positive associations emerged among online commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity, pointing to a common construct underlying the measures. Both studies revealed similar patterns of relations between trolling and the Dark Tetrad of personality: trolling correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, using both enjoyment ratings and identity scores. Of all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly, the relationship was specific to trolling behavior. Enjoyment of other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated to sadism. Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism

Mister D
09-21-2014, 07:50 PM
We have a couple trolls whose behavior does strike me as pathological. Won't mention names. :wink:

Cigar
09-21-2014, 08:04 PM
:grin: Great Thread