CDZ The Psychology of Trolling

[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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[beagle9]

Hmmm, trolls could be very intelligent people who decide only when they see idiots getting out of hand in a conversation, to then jump into the conversation either to end the bull crap with a quick kick in the butt to the one they think is the idiot or they will stay in the conversation in order to drive what they see as an idiot out of a conversation. LOL

 

[LoneLaugher]

What an excellent topic for a thread. Thanks for posting, Mac.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Right off hand I'd say:

1 -- the lack of direct contact removes a barrier that otherwise inhibits a person. This is like road rage in a way.

2 -- discussion groups such as this tends to attract hardened partisans who view politics as warfare.

3 -- people who never received attention from their parents for anything positive learned at an early age that the only thing that resulted in any attention at all was acting out, so they repeat that pattern on line.

4 -- People with low I.Q.s tend to repeat talking points rather than offering any sort of logic or reason, and so attract that wrath of those who do not suffer fools gladly.

 

[Mac1958]

Hmmm, trolls could be very intelligent people who decide only when they see idiots getting out of hand in a conversation, to then jump into the conversation either to end the bull crap with a quick kick in the butt to the one they think is the idiot or they will stay in the conversation in order to drive what they see as an idiot out of a conversation. LOL

Well, I think it's often also an attempt to deflect the conversation. Regarding intelligence, some of them are better at it than others...

 

[Mac1958]

Right off hand I'd say:

1 -- the lack of direct contact removes a barrier that otherwise inhibits a person. This is like road rage in a way.

2 -- discussion groups such as this tends to attract hardened partisans who view politics as warfare.

3 -- people who never received attention from their parents for anything positive learned at an early age that the only thing that resulted in any attention at all was acting out, so they repeat that pattern on line.

4 -- People with low I.Q.s tend to repeat talking points rather than offering any sort of logic or reason, and so attract that wrath of those who do not suffer fools gladly.

There has to be a need that is being addressed with this behavior, so I can see #3. And I don't assign this particular behavior with intelligence -- some of the people who behave that way are clearly intelligent. I think it has to do largely with the satisfying of some kind of need instead.
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[Freewill]

It could just be that you are a whiny dumb ass who can't take criticism and deserves to be shyt upon. Or something else.


The above was meant to be funny, please untie shorts as required.

 

[Mac1958]

It could just be that you are a whiny dumb ass who can't take criticism and deserves to be shyt upon. Or something else.


The above was meant to be funny, please untie shorts as required.

I've been called worse!


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[midcan5]

If trolling is defined as the deliberate and intentional attempt to disrupt threads etc then much of what we consider or call trolling is just anger and mean spirited dialogue. I have been called a troll several times, partly because I no longer spend a lot of time on threads or sites and my replies are often satirical or cynical. Who has time to counter every absurd thought or hateful comment? Have your say and hope even one person sees things differently because of it.

I am fascinated and impressed by those who try to have rational fact based debate, very rare online. As for any need being met I doubt there is any deep psychological requirement, it is more like shouting, no, you are, no, you are. I'm right, you're wrong. One interesting aspect in America today is how partisan it has become. A few words can isolate you on the left or the right, complexity out the window. Britain showed a bit of that too with Brexit vote.

Below is some food for thought, tangentially related, I begin with my favorite quote and I mention Race as it has so defined America.

"There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us." Pogo

Race: Dog Whistle Politics

"There is still no escaping first principles. My brief for equality rests on asserting the values of democracy, self-realization, empathy, dignity, and mutuality. Other people might reject these values. To this I offer a consequentialist rejoinder: only a society built on values consistent with equality will allow everyone to enjoy what the vast majority of human beings have sought from life throughout history. No society organized to enrich a ruling few at the expense of the many can produce such a result." Michael Schwalbe A Brief for Equality


"Intellectuals dwell in the realm of ideas and values, where almost nothing is ever right without qualification. So if anti-intellectualism is a natural aspect of a democratic society, humility ought to be a natural aspect of intellectual life." Richard Hofstadter's 'Anti-Intellectualism In American Life'

I do not write for those who agree with me, nor do not I write for those who will always disagree with me, I write for those who can still reason whether I am right or wrong.
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[Mac1958]

I do not write for those who agree with me, nor do not I write for those who will always disagree with me, I write for those who can still reason whether I am right or wrong..

Or, in my own personal terminology, I just belch out whatever happens to be rattling around in my little brain, and I don't really care whether someone agrees with it or not.



It's the reactions I find so interesting. Thinking this through a bit, I suspect that the troll behavior (making everything nasty & personal) could be both based on satisfying some kind of emotional need AND self-exacerbating - the darker forces within our culture are essentially feeding on themselves, spreading.
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[LoneLaugher]

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

 

[Mac1958]

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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[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.
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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.

 

[Mac1958]

Whoa, here's another interesting article on this: Internet trolls are also real-life trolls | Jordan Gaines Lewis

But a new study by Erin Buckels and colleagues at University of Manitoba in Canada wanted to figure out who, exactly, these trolls are. Using Amazon’s [URL='https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome']Mechanical Turk website, internet users (mostly male, with an average age of 29 years) answered survey questions designed to assess what’s called the “Dark Tetrad of personality”. This tetrad includes narcissism (egocentrism and preoccupation with prestige), Machiavellianism (tendency to deceive and manipulate), psychopathy (lack of empathy and inhibition), and sadism (pleasure of inflicting pain or humiliation on others).[/URL]

Scores on the Dark Tetrad personality test revealed that trolls are, by far, more likely to have narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic personality traits. Okay, so that’s not so surprising. But Buckels and colleagues wanted to take it a step further: how much enjoyment are these trolls getting from their online shenanigans? The researchers constructed their own Global Assessment of Internet Trolling (GAIT), which asked such questions as “I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz” and “The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt.” (Sadly, some people indeed answered these questions with a “yes”).

Trolling enjoyment was very strongly associated with a sadistic personality, and was also correlated with Machiavellianism and psychopathy. In fact, further statistical analysis revealed that most of the Dark Tetrad correlations with internet trolling were because of overlap with sadism.

Actually, the study may have some interesting implications. Since a sadistic person is characterised by being vicious and degrading toward others (sometimes physically), it’s possible that the internet allows them to redirect their energy. If they’re inflicting harm through anonymous words, perhaps it’s preventing them from doing something much more destructive in person. On the extreme end, and unsurprisingly, sadism is commonly seen in sexual offenders and serial killers.
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[Treeshepherd]

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.

 

[Brynmr]

Sorry to go a bit off topic here but could someone tell me what 'neg repping' is? Thanks.

 

[Mac1958]

... a troll interferes with unfriendly intentions.

Yeah, I think "interfere" is a good term.

As I read through the posted articles, I'm beginning to wonder if this behavior is more of an impulse than it is an effort to fill some kind of need. That may be a small distinction, but by "impulse" I mean almost a reflexive action, as compared to an action that is a conscious attempt to fill a need.
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[LoneLaugher]

For some reason, the OP has left it up to the reader's imagination to determine what qualifies as trolling for the purposes of this discussion. It would be most helpful if the OP would provide an example of two so we can more clearly understand his point.

Yes...I know you gave us a description of what you are referring to. I'm afraid that it is a bit vague. Citing examples would avoid misunderstanding.

 

[Mac1958]

For some reason, the OP has left it up to the reader's imagination to determine what qualifies as trolling for the purposes of this discussion. It would be most helpful if the OP would provide an example of two so we can more clearly understand his point.

Yes...I know you gave us a description of what you are referring to. I'm afraid that it is a bit vague. Citing examples would avoid misunderstanding.

So you can't think of anyone getting nasty and personal on the internet. Got it.
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[LoneLaugher]

For some reason, the OP has left it up to the reader's imagination to determine what qualifies as trolling for the purposes of this discussion. It would be most helpful if the OP would provide an example of two so we can more clearly understand his point.

Yes...I know you gave us a description of what you are referring to. I'm afraid that it is a bit vague. Citing examples would avoid misunderstanding.

It's only vague for those who want to be obtuse in an effort to derail the thread.

It doesn't require much intellectual elasticity to know what I'm talking about or what the articles are talking about.

Since you're one of the people who so regularly toss out nasty personal insults and name-calling, your agenda here is clear.

I do wish I could post a thread in the CDZ without having people play these games.
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I'm not playing games. I'm simply trying to find out what you are attempting to learn from this thread. You sought reasons for a behavior that you have witnessed. You gave no examples of the behavior. I ask for that....and you immediately accuse me of the behavior.....which you now say is insulting others.

Have you ever been guilty of the behavior that you are studying?