Internet trolling and everyday sadism: Parallel effects on pain perception and moral judgment.
OBJECTIVE
This research seeks to clarify the association between online trolling and sadistic personality, and to provide evidence that the reward and rationalization processes at work in sadism are likewise manifest in online trolling.


METHOD
Online respondents (community adults and university students; total N = 1,715) completed self-report measures of personality and trolling behavior. They subsequently engaged in one of two judgment tasks. In Study 1, respondents viewed stimuli depicting scenes of emotional/physical suffering and provided ratings of (a) perceived pain intensity and (b) pleasure experienced while viewing the photos. In Study 2, the iTroll questionnaire was developed and validated. It was then administered alongside a moral judgment task.


RESULTS
Across both studies, online trolling was strongly associated with a sadistic personality profile. Moreover, sadism and trolling predicted identical patterns of pleasure and harm minimization. The incremental contribution of sadism was sustained even when controlling for broader antisocial tendencies (i.e., the Dark Triad, callous-unemotionality, and trait aggression).


CONCLUSIONS
Results confirm that online trolling is motivated (at least in part) by sadistic tendencies. Coupled with effective rationalization mechanisms, sadistic pleasure can be consummated in such everyday behaviors as online trolling.
['Buckels|Erin E|EE|0000-0002-8782-3776', 'Trapnell|Paul D|PD|', 'Andjelovic|Tamara|T|', 'Paulhus|Delroy L|DL|']
D000328:Adult D000374:Aggression D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder D005260:Female D006801:Humans D020407:Internet D007600:Judgment D008257:Machiavellianism D008297:Male D009014:Morals D009289:Narcissism D058748:Pain Perception D010551:Personality D057181:Pleasure D012448:Sadism D012919:Social Behavior D012938:Social Perception D055815:Young Adult
everyday sadism online trolling Dark Triad Dark Tetrad cyber deviance