“You’re ugly”
“Fail at life.”
“Go bomb yourself”
If you consider yourself to be fairly active on social media, you have probably come across, and have had to deal with such nasty comments by “haters” or “trolls.” They rant. They post threats. They spew hate speech. Much like the Scandinavian mythical trolls who dwell in isolated rocks and caves and have less than benevolent intent, internet trolls hide behind their computer screens and antagonise netizens by posting offensive remarks to get a rise out of them.
According to a recent study conducted using over a thousand people, more than a quarter have admitted to trolling behaviour; nearly 28% admitted to engaging in malicious activity online directed towards someone they did not know, and 12% admitted to go so far that they have had their comment removed by a moderator. That’s a lot!
But are these trolls just jerks in general? Or do they have certain underlying psychological traits that could explain their behaviour? Turns out that there are. Using two online studies researchers found that online commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity was positively associated with the Dark Tetrad of personality. That is, those who were high on the traits of sadism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, also highly enjoyed and identified with trolling behaviours. Another study in 2017 that explored the personality profile of trolls found somewhat similar results of trolling behaviour being associated with sadism and psychopathy. Surprisingly, there were also strong associations with a trait which generally has a positive connotation- empathy. Trolls were found to have high cognitive empathy, which is the ability to recognize and understand each other’s emotions. The presence of cognitive empathy and lack of affective empathy explains how people who troll are so good at upsetting others because they know which buttons to push to make others upset and to predict what would be most hurtful without internalising it. Studies also showed sex differences in trolling behaviour, with men engaging more in it than women. Studies have also linked these sex differences with increased narcissistic tendencies among men. In a study, 573 participants were asked to rate themselves on a narcissistic personality scale. They found that men have higher levels of narcissism and were also more likely to use social media for antisocial reasons than women.
Are only those who have traits of psychopathy, narcissism, sadism and Machiavellianism destined to become trolls? No! Research from Stanford and Cornell has found that in some contexts and in certain moods even regular non-sadists can turn to trolling. In the first part of the experiment, participants were given either an easy or a hard test and then their moods were evaluated using a questionnaire. According to what the researchers had expected, participants who were given the hard test were in a worse mood. Then they were presented with an article to read where the comment section had either three troll posts or three neutral posts as the top. The participants themselves could post one or more comments. They found that 35% of the participants who were given the easy test and presented with the neutral posts later posted troll comments of their own. When participants were presented with either the hard test or the troll comments, 50% of them posted troll comments and nearly 68% posted troll comments when presented with both the hard test as well as the troll comments. Another major factor, unrelated to personality traits, that contributes to trolling behaviour is online disinhibition effect, according to which people are more open to engaging in trolling behind a computer due to the anonymity it provides. Another study also found that anonymity is a key ingredient when it comes to antisocial behaviour because it allows people to worry less about the consequences of what they say. Not only do these negative comments have the power to influence to influence the opinions of otherwise objective readers, trolling can also escalate to bullying. Yet another study has found that cyber-victimisation represents an additional risk factor as compared to traditional victimisation and bullying for the development of symptoms of depression.
The most common way to deal with trolls is to ignore them, as the known wisdom goes: “don’t feed the trolls!” However, research has identified other ways that have been found to be more effective in managing trolls such: (1) Engaging by responding sincerely; (2) Exposing the troll to the rest of the group; (3) Challenging the troll directly or indirectly; (4) Critiquing the effectiveness, success, or ‘quality’ of the troll; (5) Mocking or parodying the trolling attempt; and, (6) Reciprocating in kind by trolling the troll. In one study, participants reported that even though simply ignoring the trolls may be suitable in cases, other interventions are necessary, such as blocking trolls, deleting their posts, closely monitoring their online behaviour etc. Unmasking their identities was found to be particularly useful by participants. Participants also specifically identified and evaluated the circumstances in which it is appropriate to block the user, delete posts, ignore them, employ peer evaluation through tribunal systems or impose a governance system in response to instances of trolling.
Ultimately, in a world where technology is maturing faster than we are, even if we take steps to de-troll, it is impossible to not have trolls at all. All we can do is to use different ways to manage them.
Kimaya Khanolkar
