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Trolls Just Want to Have Fun!

Havelock

Mayor
Well, this should surprise just about no one: Trolls Just Want to Have Fun

Abstract:
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.

o_O
 

NightSwimmer

Senator
I can't say that I find these results shocking. I suppose a discussion board is like a form of pornography for some posters.

Ugh... Kinda wish I could un-think that thought, now that I've thunk it! ;)
 

Havelock

Mayor
I can't say that I find these results shocking. I suppose a discussion board is like a form of pornography for some posters.

Ugh... Kinda wish I could un-think that thought, now that I've thunk it! ;)
Heh... Pornography is a pretty good analogy, I think. Clearly a lot of folks use these boards to satisfy urges they can't fulfill in their normal, everyday relationships. Sometimes those urges are nurturing and uplifting. And sometimes they're toxic and dark. Pretty easy as a rule to pick out who's who and which is which, if you ask me.

And yes, what has been thought cannot be unthought!

Cheers.
 
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