CDZ The Psychology of Trolling

[Mac1958]

Okay, this is cute, but also interesting:

 

[320 Years of History]

The three groups of reasons for the behavior, as explained in the OP strike me as being spot on. I think I'd add to what they said that boors and cads failed to learn good manners and neutral behavior methods. Why? I don't know.

I happen to think boors exhibit the same behavior in real life, as opposed to "Internet life." The only difference is that objects of the boor's invective can't really exact retribution (or much of it) over the Internet.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Awesome. You have finally decided to identify what trolling is instead of what reacting to trolls is. Progress.

Has the OP ever started a thread with the purpose of provoking others?

Maybe the OP can try to answer his own questions.

 

[Mac1958]

I happen to think boors exhibit the same behavior in real life, as opposed to "Internet life." The only difference is that objects of the boor's invective can't really exact retribution (or much of it) over the Internet.

That's probably the gateway to the behavior - the fact that they know they are safe to do it.

So, to the reasons for the behavior - right now I'm torn between whether they're trying to fulfill an emotional/psychological need, or whether they're just acting on impulses.

There has been very little of that question addressed in what I've read so far.
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[HenryBHough]

A major part of the apparent increase in trolling is due to a "modernized" definition of that which is "trolling". These days it has come to be simply defined as the expression of any opinion which even slightly disagrees with the opinion of the original poster.

 

[Mac1958]

A major part of the apparent increase in trolling is due to a "modernized" definition of that which is "trolling". These days it has come to be simply defined as the expression of any opinion which even slightly disagrees with the opinion of the original poster.

Sure, definitions can change.

That's why I got specific. My working definition for the purposes of this thread might be "nasty, personal, often vulgar attacks on people who did not address you in the first place". Something like that. No shortage of THOSE. And that's essentially what the linked articles are talking about.
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[HenryBHough]

Sure, definitions can change.

That's why I got specific. My working definition for the purposes of this thread might be "nasty, personal, often vulgar attacks on people who did not address you in the first place". Something like that. No shortage of THOSE. And that's essentially what the linked articles are talking about.

Thank you for the amplification.

I do believe that there is also quite a change in perception of what's taken as offensive. A kind of softening. But I also must confess that, when it becomes too easy to wind up a toy and watch it dance there is great temptation to over-wind. Sometimes to enjoy the spectacle of a more ludicrous dance; other times in hope of breaking the mainspring.

A sort of one psychosis giving birth to another.

 

[yiostheoy]

Your thoughts please!

First, to create some context: For the purposes of this thread, I want to concentrate on the behavior of reacting to a post or article or column by getting nasty and personal, and staying nasty and personal.

As we know, this site, and the internet in general, are replete with this behavior. My guess that it is playing a significant role in the general deterioration of political discourse we're seeing worldwide. For whatever reason, I'm fascinated by its motivations: Why do people do this? Specifically, what internal need is being met by this behavior? That's the specific question this thread is posing. Let's (please) try to keep it on that.

I think there a couple of explanations that are probably just givens: First, that it provides some kind of temporary catharsis for a person's various feelings of guilt, frustration, anger. And second, more simply, these people just want to make others as miserable as they are.

But to add to this, I found a couple of interesting pieces:

Troll Psychology: Why People Are So Mean on the Internet
Why Are People So Mean? Has The Internet Destroyed Empathy & Compassion?
Behind the online comments: the psychology of internet trolls

Some ideas offered in the third piece linked:

First, trolls are more likely to display noxious personality characteristics, that is, traits that impair one’s ability to build relations and function in a civilised or pro-social way. In a comprehensive examination of their psychological profile, trolls were found to be more Machiavellian (impulsive and charming manipulators), psychopathic (cold, fearless and antisocial), and especially sadist than the overall population. Trolls enjoy harming and intimidating others, so much so that the authors of this study concluded that trolls are “prototypical everyday sadists”, and that trolling should be regarded as online sadism.

Second, trolling – like other forms of computer-mediated communication – unleashes people’s impulses by providing anonymity and temporary identity loss. This phenomenon, called deindividuation, is well known to psychologists and has been found to emerge in several areas of interpersonal relations, such as gaming, role-playing and crowd behaviours, particularly hooliganism. Thus even when we are not naturally sadistic, trolling may bring out the worst side in us, by lifting the moral constrains and social etiquette that regulates our behaviour in normal situations, and by fuelling dissent and triggering abrasive reactions.


Third, trolling is a status-enhancing activity: by attracting readers’ attention, upsetting people, sparking heated debates, and even gaining approval from others, trolls can feel important, perhaps much more than they are in their real lives. Thus trolling is yet another internet activity that promotes narcissistic motives, since trolls may be expected to be far less successful in attracting people’s attention in the physical world. The only effective antidote to their tactics is to ignore them, but even then trolls won’t suffer a public humiliation because nobody knows who they are. This is what makes trolling so ubiquitous – it requires no skills other than the ability to be obnoxious.
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Passive-aggressiveness -- most of you are afraid to fight in person so the internet is the only chance you get to insult others without getting your head knocked off.

 

[Mac1958]

Your thoughts please!

First, to create some context: For the purposes of this thread, I want to concentrate on the behavior of reacting to a post or article or column by getting nasty and personal, and staying nasty and personal.

As we know, this site, and the internet in general, are replete with this behavior. My guess that it is playing a significant role in the general deterioration of political discourse we're seeing worldwide. For whatever reason, I'm fascinated by its motivations: Why do people do this? Specifically, what internal need is being met by this behavior? That's the specific question this thread is posing. Let's (please) try to keep it on that.

I think there a couple of explanations that are probably just givens: First, that it provides some kind of temporary catharsis for a person's various feelings of guilt, frustration, anger. And second, more simply, these people just want to make others as miserable as they are.

But to add to this, I found a couple of interesting pieces:

Troll Psychology: Why People Are So Mean on the Internet
Why Are People So Mean? Has The Internet Destroyed Empathy & Compassion?
Behind the online comments: the psychology of internet trolls

Some ideas offered in the third piece linked:

First, trolls are more likely to display noxious personality characteristics, that is, traits that impair one’s ability to build relations and function in a civilised or pro-social way. In a comprehensive examination of their psychological profile, trolls were found to be more Machiavellian (impulsive and charming manipulators), psychopathic (cold, fearless and antisocial), and especially sadist than the overall population. Trolls enjoy harming and intimidating others, so much so that the authors of this study concluded that trolls are “prototypical everyday sadists”, and that trolling should be regarded as online sadism.

Second, trolling – like other forms of computer-mediated communication – unleashes people’s impulses by providing anonymity and temporary identity loss. This phenomenon, called deindividuation, is well known to psychologists and has been found to emerge in several areas of interpersonal relations, such as gaming, role-playing and crowd behaviours, particularly hooliganism. Thus even when we are not naturally sadistic, trolling may bring out the worst side in us, by lifting the moral constrains and social etiquette that regulates our behaviour in normal situations, and by fuelling dissent and triggering abrasive reactions.


Third, trolling is a status-enhancing activity: by attracting readers’ attention, upsetting people, sparking heated debates, and even gaining approval from others, trolls can feel important, perhaps much more than they are in their real lives. Thus trolling is yet another internet activity that promotes narcissistic motives, since trolls may be expected to be far less successful in attracting people’s attention in the physical world. The only effective antidote to their tactics is to ignore them, but even then trolls won’t suffer a public humiliation because nobody knows who they are. This is what makes trolling so ubiquitous – it requires no skills other than the ability to be obnoxious.
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Passive-aggressiveness -- most of you are afraid to fight in person so the internet is the only chance you get to insult others without getting your head knocked off.

Yes, as already discussed, anonymity does make people brave.
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[yiostheoy]

The term is derived from the mythological troll. For me it would be the troll from Three Billy Goats Gruff because that's my earliest memory of trolls. I also remember an illustrated picture book of the Hobbit. Millennials might conjure images of trolls from the LoTR movies or Harry Potter.

The troll from Three Billy Goats Gruff blocked the bridge to greener pastures. The cartoonish illustrations from my childhood Hobbit book are of trolls which interfere with the journey.

It's an anecdotal term with quite a bit of ambiguity. I'm comfortable with leaving it ambiguous, but the common denominator is that a troll interferes with unfriendly intentions.

I like J.R.R. Tolkien's 3 trolls from "The Hobbit":

Tom, Bert, and William

 

[yiostheoy]

Trolling can be defined as posting something with the sole intent of getting a rise out of another. Can it not?

No, not for the purposes of this thread. I went out of my way to be very specific in framing the thread, because I knew some would get defensive over its topic and attempt to deflect it away from its intended point.

So, to quote the OP:

For the purposes of this thread, I want to concentrate on the behavior of reacting to a post or article or column by getting nasty and personal, and staying nasty and personal.

Why do people do this? Specifically, what internal need is being met by this behavior? That's the specific question this thread is posing. Let's (please) try to keep it on that.

You're more than welcome to post a thread on your topic.
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When a person posts things with the intent to get a strong reaction....especially when they predict said reaction in their post...it is known as trolling.

Reacting to a troll post....regardless of the type of reaction....is not trolling. It is reacting to a troll.

Asking why people react to trolls in a nasty manner is a reasonable thing....but let's not confuse that with trolling.

Anytime you post something from the extreme far right or the extreme far left you are going to get an extreme reaction.

And anytime you respond to the morons on the extreme far right and on the extreme far left you are going to be called a troll.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Trolling can be defined as posting something with the sole intent of getting a rise out of another. Can it not?

No, not for the purposes of this thread. I went out of my way to be very specific in framing the thread, because I knew some would get defensive over its topic and attempt to deflect it away from its intended point.

So, to quote the OP:

For the purposes of this thread, I want to concentrate on the behavior of reacting to a post or article or column by getting nasty and personal, and staying nasty and personal.

Why do people do this? Specifically, what internal need is being met by this behavior? That's the specific question this thread is posing. Let's (please) try to keep it on that.

You're more than welcome to post a thread on your topic.
.

When a person posts things with the intent to get a strong reaction....especially when they predict said reaction in their post...it is known as trolling.

Reacting to a troll post....regardless of the type of reaction....is not trolling. It is reacting to a troll.

Asking why people react to trolls in a nasty manner is a reasonable thing....but let's not confuse that with trolling.

Anytime you post something from the extreme far right or the extreme far left you are going to get an extreme reaction.

And anytime you respond to the morons on the extreme far right and on the extreme far left you are going to be called a troll.

Hmmmmmm.

 

[Mac1958]

Anytime you post something from the extreme far right or the extreme far left you are going to get an extreme reaction.
And anytime you respond to the morons on the extreme far right and on the extreme far left you are going to be called a troll.

But a person is under no obligation to get nasty and personal in their response to a troll. That's a decision they make on their own, to exacerbate the situation.

The biggest mistake I make is responding to them at all. I do that too often.
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[320 Years of History]

So, to the reasons for the behavior - right now I'm torn between whether they're trying to fulfill an emotional/psychological need, or whether they're just acting on impulses.

It could well be one, the other or degrees of either.

I don't actually think "the" answer is easily boiled down into just one or two behavioral traits, inclinations or motivations. I think it's a combination of things pertaining to one's perceptions about oneself as go inferiority/superiority, loneliness, achievement/lack of achievement -- particularly with regard to one's own awareness of what potential for it they had, how much of it they used and how much they wasted, and competitiveness. I think they are all interrelated in everyone, but for folks who "lash out" as "troll," there's some sort of shift to make up for the negatives -- things they know they didn't do that they could have done or should have done differently -- in order to recover some measure of regard for themselves.

Because of the complexity of the matter, I think you may be better off reading multiple documents, at least one each that addresses the root psychological "problem"/inspiration and then aim to aggregate the ideas found there into to a coherent extrapolation/application to the specific matter of online boorishness. The content you find here may help:

• Papers about the psychology of defensive behavior and status seeking
• Papers about the psychology of offensive behavior and status seeking
• Papers about the psychology of trolls

This may also be useful (is this one of the papers referenced in your OP links/articles? I don't know.): The Psychology of Trolling and Lurking: The Role of Defriending and Gamification for Increasing Participation in Online Communities Using Seductive Narratives. Be sure to check the reference list at the end of the paper; it will without doubt point you toward other highly credible sources of information on the same or closely related topics.

FWIW, I would have looked through several references/papers to see what I can learn about the psychology of "trolls," but quite frankly, the "ignore" feature is my solution for dealing with them on the Internet, and I'm content with that as my sole means of recourse. My "real world" life rarely puts me in contact with "trolls." I can't even recall the last time it did. The "real world" and the people I know/interact with in it matter to me; what goes on on the WWW by and large does not. That's why the "ignore" feature is all I need and why I don't care about obtaining something of a keen understanding of the psychology of "trollism."

 

[Mac1958]

So, to the reasons for the behavior - right now I'm torn between whether they're trying to fulfill an emotional/psychological need, or whether they're just acting on impulses.

It could well be one, the other or degrees of either.

I don't actually think "the" answer is easily boiled down into just one or two behavioral traits, inclinations or motivations. I think it's a combination of things pertaining to one's perceptions about oneself as go inferiority/superiority, loneliness, achievement/lack of achievement -- particularly with regard to one's own awareness of what potential for it they had, how much of it they used and how much they wasted, and competitiveness. I think they are all interrelated in everyone, but for folks who "lash out" as "troll," there's some sort of shift to make up for the negatives -- things they know they didn't do that they could have done or should have done differently -- in order to recover some measure of regard for themselves.

Because of the complexity of the matter, I think you may be better off reading multiple documents, at least one each that addresses the root psychological "problem"/inspiration and then aim to aggregate the ideas found there into to a coherent extrapolation/application to the specific matter of online boorishness. The content you find here may help:

• Papers about the psychology of defensive behavior and status seeking
• Papers about the psychology of offensive behavior and status seeking
• Papers about the psychology of trolls

This may also be useful (is this one of the papers referenced in your OP links/articles? I don't know.): The Psychology of Trolling and Lurking: The Role of Defriending and Gamification for Increasing Participation in Online Communities Using Seductive Narratives. Be sure to check the reference list at the end of the paper; it will without doubt point you toward other highly credible sources of information on the same or closely related topics.

FWIW, I would have looked through several references/papers to see what I can learn about the psychology of "trolls," but quite frankly, the "ignore" feature is my solution for dealing with them on the Internet, and I'm content with that as my sole means of recourse. My "real world" life rarely puts me in contact with "trolls." I can't even recall the last time it did. The "real world" and the people I know/interact with in it matter to me; what goes on on the WWW by and large does not. That's why the "ignore" feature is all I need and why I don't care about obtaining something of a keen understanding of the psychology of "trollism."

Thank you, I'll go through those.

And yes, the incidence of trolldom (?) online is fantastically higher than in real life - so that might indicate that the behavior is some kind of cathartic mechanism, that otherwise normal people turn into something else when online, and for a reason.

I also remember something called "Histrionic Personality Disorder", in which the person craves drama and negative attention: Histrionic Personality Disorder Symptoms | Psych Central
.

 

[flacaltenn]

So, to the reasons for the behavior - right now I'm torn between whether they're trying to fulfill an emotional/psychological need, or whether they're just acting on impulses.

It could well be one, the other or degrees of either.

I don't actually think "the" answer is easily boiled down into just one or two behavioral traits, inclinations or motivations. I think it's a combination of things pertaining to one's perceptions about oneself as go inferiority/superiority, loneliness, achievement/lack of achievement -- particularly with regard to one's own awareness of what potential for it they had, how much of it they used and how much they wasted, and competitiveness. I think they are all interrelated in everyone, but for folks who "lash out" as "troll," there's some sort of shift to make up for the negatives -- things they know they didn't do that they could have done or should have done differently -- in order to recover some measure of regard for themselves.

Because of the complexity of the matter, I think you may be better off reading multiple documents, at least one each that addresses the root psychological "problem"/inspiration and then aim to aggregate the ideas found there into to a coherent extrapolation/application to the specific matter of online boorishness. The content you find here may help:

• Papers about the psychology of defensive behavior and status seeking
• Papers about the psychology of offensive behavior and status seeking
• Papers about the psychology of trolls

This may also be useful (is this one of the papers referenced in your OP links/articles? I don't know.): The Psychology of Trolling and Lurking: The Role of Defriending and Gamification for Increasing Participation in Online Communities Using Seductive Narratives. Be sure to check the reference list at the end of the paper; it will without doubt point you toward other highly credible sources of information on the same or closely related topics.

FWIW, I would have looked through several references/papers to see what I can learn about the psychology of "trolls," but quite frankly, the "ignore" feature is my solution for dealing with them on the Internet, and I'm content with that as my sole means of recourse. My "real world" life rarely puts me in contact with "trolls." I can't even recall the last time it did. The "real world" and the people I know/interact with in it matter to me; what goes on on the WWW by and large does not. That's why the "ignore" feature is all I need and why I don't care about obtaining something of a keen understanding of the psychology of "trollism."

Thank you, I'll go through those.

And yes, the incidence of trolldom (?) online is fantastically higher than in real life - so that might indicate that the behavior is some kind of cathartic mechanism, that otherwise normal people turn into something else when online, and for a reason.

I also remember something called "Histrionic Personality Disorder", in which the person craves drama and negative attention: Histrionic Personality Disorder Symptoms | Psych Central
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I don't know. Maybe person to person trolls are rare. But I consider A LOT of the common talking heads that repeatedly appear on cable TV or radio to spin and attack ----- as trolls too.. They are not there to discuss the topic. They have their own agendas. If trolls are good at one thing, it's keeping people from carrying on adult conversations --- and possibly --- learn something...

 

[flacaltenn]

Must be a nice gigue to be a high paid news cycle troll..

 

[320 Years of History]

If trolls are good at one thing, it's keeping people from carrying on adult conversations

They sure are. LOL

 

[Mac1958]

But I consider A LOT of the common talking heads that repeatedly appear on cable TV or radio to spin and attack ----- as trolls too.. They are not there to discuss the topic. They have their own agendas.

Yes, I can see that. They're not answering the interviewers' questions, they're just spouting off talking points and attacking the other "side". They're contributing nothing, they're not advancing the topic at hand in any meaningful way.
.

 

[midcan5]

Two more pieces, the first on men and the modern world is interesting - and I'd think controversial. Does trolling return men to their true nature? I'm reading Knausgaard's 'my struggle' vol 2 and he confirms that Sweden has settled the issue raised in the first link. 'What the..." offers an opinion that if given in another setting would be trolling. Second piece defines trolling in a way most could agree on.

What the hell is going on? - Marginal REVOLUTION

"Well then, the troll in the proper sense is one who speaks to a community and as being part of the community; only he is not part of it, but opposed. And the community has some good in common, and this the troll must know, and what things promote and destroy it: for he seeks to destroy. Hence no one would troll the remotest Mysian, or even know how, but rather a Republican trolls a Democratic blog and a Democrat Republicans."

[Aristotle], On Trolling
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