The Psychology of Internet Trolls

We all know people who seem to take pleasure in disrupting a conversation and making others upset: Internet trolls! Internet trolls can be found virtually anywhere on the Internet. Any site, blog, or forum that allows visitor comments can become a target of trolling. This is so common that a group of Canadian researchers decided to conduct a study to find out what’s wrong with these people!

Here are some important points from the study:

• Of 1,215 participants, only 5.6 percent admitted that Internet trolling was their favorite activity;
• Although they possess rather negative traits, trolls tend to be extroverted;
• They truly enjoy making others upset and see it as a form of entertainment;
• Internet trolling is strongly associated with narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, direct sadism, and vicarious sadism.

Here is the complete document.

Another study showed that Internet trolls tend to have unusually high expectations of what it means to be successful. The standard is so high that trolls themselves fail to achieve it. When they see someone who is successful despite being below this standard, they tend to resent them and feel tempted to bully them (2013).

In general, the goal of trolling is to provoke and upset others. The more emotional and upset you get, the more rewarding the interaction may become for the troll. This is why one of the best ways to deal with trolls is often to ignore them. Don’t feed the trolls!