Are Internet Trolls Psychopathic? | Sadistic, Narcissistic & Antisocial Personality

This video answers the question: Can I describe the typical personality profile of the internet troll? This would be the typical profile and any particular person who engages in internet trolling behavior wouldn't necessarily have the different characteristics I'm going to describe in this video. What is internet trolling? It is a deliberate attempt to create conflict and distress by communicating inflammatory, provocative, and menacing comments to victims. An Internet troll is someone who is generally recognized as being antisocial and malicious.

Psychopathy and sadism both predict internet trolling behavior. Internet trolling is associated with primary, but not secondary psychopathy. Primary psychopathy is characterized by traits like being callous, manipulative, being a pathological liar, lacking in remorse, empathy, and guilt.
With secondary psychopathy we see somebody who's impulsive, irresponsible, neurotic, emotionally reactive, they tend to engage in criminal behaviors, and they are sensation-seeking.
With psychopathy, cognitive empathy again is intact and affective empathy is not. Internet trolling has an association with affective empathy and cognitive empathy. As cognitive empathy increases, we see an increase in internet trolling behavior, but only when psychopathy increases as well.

Internet trolling has an association with both direct sadism and vicarious sadism. Direct sadism is when somebody enjoys directly hurting or humiliating other people and vicarious sadism is when the enjoyment is derived from watching other people being hurt or humiliated.

Grandiose narcissism has a positive association with Internet trolling, but vulnerable narcissism does not have an association.
March, E. (2019). Psychopathy, sadism, empathy, and the motivation to cause harm: New evidence confirms malevolent nature of the Internet troll. Personality and Individual Differences, 141, 133–137.

Видео Are Internet Trolls Psychopathic? | Sadistic, Narcissistic & Antisocial Personality канала Dr. Todd Grande