Science Says: Internet Trolls = Genuinely Bad People

[Jacob]

Okay, maybe that's a slightly lurid interpretation, but:

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."

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!"

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists

[mongers]

Damn, I'm sure no one ever mentioned they'd be studying us when we registered at Languish. 

[Admiral Yi]

Curious as to what Machiavellianism is and how it's a negative trait.

[Jacob]

Curious as to what Machiavellianism is and how it's a negative trait.

Wikipedia to the rescue!

Machiavellianism is also a term that some social and personality psychologists use to describe a person's tendency to be unemotional, and therefore able to detach him or herself from conventional morality and hence to deceive and manipulate others. In the 1960s, Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis developed a test for measuring a person's level of Machiavellianism (sometimes referred to as the Machiavelli test). Their Mach - IV test, a twenty-statement personality survey, became the standard self-assessment tool of Machiavellianism. People scoring high on the scale (high Machs) tend to endorse statements such as, "Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so," (No. 1) but not ones like, "Most people are basically good and kind" (No. 4), "There is no excuse for lying to someone else," (No. 7) or "Most people who get ahead in the world lead clean, moral lives" (No. 11). Using their scale, Christie and Geis conducted multiple experimental tests that showed that the interpersonal strategies and behavior of "High Machs" and "Low Machs" differ. Their basic results have been widely replicated.

Machiavellianism is one of the three personality traits referred to as the dark triad, along with narcissism and psychopathy. Some psychologists consider Machiavellianism to be essentially a subclinical form of psychopathy...

Machiavellianism has been found to lie diagonally opposite from a circumplex construct called self-construal, a tendency to prefer communion over agency. This suggests that people high in machiavellianism do not simply wish to achieve, they wish to do so at the expense of (or at least without regard to) others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism#Psychology

So, apparently, Machiavellianism is the tendency to hide your motivations and manipulate others to get what you want, without regard to how it affects them (or possibly even taking pleasure in the negative impact on them).

[Capetan Mihali]

It's the tendency to violently advocate for gaoling the indigenous peoples of the frozen North American tundra.

[LaCroix]

"favorite activity online." sure, that makes sense, but it doesn't really help to find out whether internet trolls are terrible people

[Jacob]

"favorite activity online." sure, that makes sense, but it doesn't really help to find out whether internet trolls are terrible people

There's a strong correspondence between:

1) Trolling being a favourite activity online

2) High scores in the "dark triad" personality traits (amusingly breaking down to more than three traits: machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, direct sadism, and vicarious sadism). This is colloquially rephrased as "being terrible people".

... seems close enough for pop-science reporting.

[CountDeMoney]

Curious as to what Machiavellianism is and how it's a negative trait.

Wikipedia to the rescue!

Machiavellianism is also a term that some social and personality psychologists use to describe a person's tendency to be unemotional, and therefore able to detach him or herself from conventional morality and hence to deceive and manipulate others. In the 1960s, Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis developed a test for measuring a person's level of Machiavellianism (sometimes referred to as the Machiavelli test). Their Mach - IV test, a twenty-statement personality survey, became the standard self-assessment tool of Machiavellianism. People scoring high on the scale (high Machs) tend to endorse statements such as, "Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so," (No. 1) but not ones like, "Most people are basically good and kind" (No. 4), "There is no excuse for lying to someone else," (No. 7) or "Most people who get ahead in the world lead clean, moral lives" (No. 11). Using their scale, Christie and Geis conducted multiple experimental tests that showed that the interpersonal strategies and behavior of "High Machs" and "Low Machs" differ. Their basic results have been widely replicated.

Machiavellianism is one of the three personality traits referred to as the dark triad, along with narcissism and psychopathy. Some psychologists consider Machiavellianism to be essentially a subclinical form of psychopathy...

Machiavellianism has been found to lie diagonally opposite from a circumplex construct called self-construal, a tendency to prefer communion over agency. This suggests that people high in machiavellianism do not simply wish to achieve, they wish to do so at the expense of (or at least without regard to) others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism#Psychology

So, apparently, Machiavellianism is the tendency to hide your motivations and manipulate others to get what you want, without regard to how it affects them (or possibly even taking pleasure in the negative impact on them).

In short, "Machiavellianism" is simply a catchy phrase coined for a field that relies on labels by individuals who have never read a single word by Machiavelli.

[Ideologue]

Oh yeah, science?  Your mom's a dark tard.

[garbon]

So what's in other that's not debating/chatting? Tim news posts?

[CountDeMoney]

Shitcock.

[garbon]

In short, "Machiavellianism" is simply a catchy phrase coined for a field that relies on labels by individuals who have never read a single word by Machiavelli.

Okay this is really bad of me. Thinking what I know of Machiavelli - I was going to define the term as "being a sad sack who is all QQ when he can't get a job."

[CountDeMoney]

In short, "Machiavellianism" is simply a catchy phrase coined for a field that relies on labels by individuals who have never read a single word by Machiavelli.

Okay this is really bad of me. Thinking what I know of Machiavelli - I was going to define the term as "being a sad sack who is all QQ when he can't get a job."

Well, that would be incorrect.

[Valmy]

Trolls are pretty horrible.  It is amazing the sort of chaos and harm you can cause just be being a horrible person with an internet connection.

[Razgovory]

In short, "Machiavellianism" is simply a catchy phrase coined for a field that relies on labels by individuals who have never read a single word by Machiavelli.

That's fair, but they probably haven't read up on Sade's work either.  Actually, I'm willing to bet you are the only one on this board who's read his works.