The Psychology Behind Internet Trolling

Summary

Research into internet trolling reveals it is often driven by sadism, psychopathy, and a desire for personal enjoyment or revenge, facilitated by online anonymity.

Abstract

Internet trolling is characterized by malicious online behavior intended to disrupt communication. Psychological studies indicate that trolls are motivated by personal enjoyment, revenge, and thrill-seeking, with social triggers such as experiencing trolling themselves being a significant catalyst. Research has consistently linked trolling behavior with the Dark Tetrad personality traits—sadism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—with sadism being the most strongly correlated. Trolls often underestimate the pain they cause, which may be a mechanism to avoid guilt and maintain a positive self-image. Additionally, trolling is directed more towards popular individuals rather than unpopular ones, and negative social potency is a key motivator for trolls who seek to exert negative influence over others.

Opinions

Engaging with trolls is generally unproductive and unlikely to result in positive outcomes.
Trolling is a complex behavior with various triggers, including social interactions, internal mood states like boredom, and circumstantial factors.
The anonymity provided by the internet can lead to deindividuation and behavior that deviates from social norms.
Standing up against stigma on social media platforms, such as Twitter, may not be effective in deterring trolling behavior.
Individuals with unsavory personalities are more prone to engage in trolling, although this is not universally true.
Trolls may justify their actions by deriving pleasure from their behavior and downplaying the harm caused to others.
Impulsivity combined with medium to high levels of psychopathy increases the likelihood of trolling behavior.

The Psychology Behind Internet Trolling

Why do some people engage in this malicious behaviour?

Of course, we all know what trolling is, and most of us have experienced it. But what underlies it from a psychological perspective?

A paper by Coles and West described trolling as “a specific type of malicious online behaviour, intended to aggravate, annoy or otherwise disrupt online interactions and communication.” The anonymity of the online world facilitates disinhibition, which can lead to deindividuation and behaviours that go against social norms.

A study by Cook and colleagues interviewed people who’d engaged in video game trolling. Three broad types of triggers were identified for trolling behaviour: social, internal, and circumstantial. Social triggers were most common, and experiencing trolling themselves was the biggest trigger. Negative mood and boredom were identified as internal triggers, and a small number of participants reported other triggers related to circumstances.

In the same study, the main goal identified was personal enjoyment. Revenge and thrill-seeking were also reported as goals of trolling.

A 2014 study by Buckels and colleagues surveyed Americans recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing site. Sadism was the personality trait that had the strongest correlation was trolling. The so-called Dark Tetrad of sadism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy was also associated with trolling. The most common reason given for trolling was enjoyment, and this was significantly correlated with sadism.

In a 2019 study by Buckels and colleagues, both sadism and trolling had an inverse relationship with enjoyment and perceived pain experienced by others. Higher enjoyment was associated with lower perceived pain, and the researchers suggested that pain was underestimated as a result of the enjoyment, perhaps in order to allay any guilt. The enjoyment was also linked to a decreased sense of culpability for the harm done. This kind of rationalization allows trolls to inflict harm while still maintaining a positive self-image.

A study by Lopes and Yu found that psychopathy was associated with trolling, and that was most likely to be directed at individuals who were perceived as popular rather than unpopular. While narcissists perceive themselves as superior to others, narcissism was not associated with increased trolling in their study.

Craker and March also found that sadism and psychopathy were linked to trolling, but they observed that what was particularly important was negative social potency, meaning people “are likely to be intrinsically motivated by obtaining negative power and influence over other people as a social reward.”

March and colleagues looked at trolling on Tinder, and they found that impulsivity was also a factor in trolling among people with medium to high levels of psychopathy.

So, unsurprisingly, the kinds of people who engage in trolling behaviour are likely to have fairly unsavoury personalities, although this is by no means always the case. For me what really stands out from all of this is that trying to reason with a troll is very unlikely to be a productive endeavour.

In the mental illness community on Twitter, a lot of the trolling I see is stigma-related, and I wonder if standing up for the anti-stigma cause is just a waste of figurative breath in that context. I don’t know that I’ve experienced any trolling directed outrightly at me. I refuse to engage in any back-and-forth with any troll-ish types, so there’s really nowhere for it to go.

Is trolling something that you’ve experienced personally? How have you handled it?

Sources:

Buckels, E. E., Trapnell, P. D., Andjelovic, T., & Paulhus, D. L. (2019). Internet trolling and everyday sadism: Parallel effects on pain perception and moral judgment. Journal of personality, 87(2), 328–340.

Buckels, E. E., Trapnell, P. D., & Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Trolls just want to have fun. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 97–102.

Coles, B. A., & West, M. (2016). Trolling the trolls: Online forum users constructions of the nature and properties of trolling. Computers in Human Behavior, 60, 233–244.

Cook, C., Schaafsma, J., & Antheunis, M. (2018). Under the bridge: An in-depth examination of online trolling in the gaming context. New Media & Society, 20(9), 3323–3340.

Craker, N., & March, E. (2016). The dark side of Facebook®: The Dark Tetrad, negative social potency, and trolling behaviours. Personality and Individual Differences, 102, 79–84.

Lopes, B., & Yu, H. (2017). Who do you troll and Why: An investigation into the relationship between the Dark Triad Personalities and online trolling behaviours towards popular and less popular Facebook profiles. Computers in Human Behavior, 77, 69–76.

March, E., Grieve, R., Marrington, J., & Jonason, P. K. (2017). Trolling on Tinder® (and other dating apps): Examining the role of the Dark Tetrad and impulsivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 110, 139–143.