Trolling is a personality-driven abuse of conversational decorum linked to sadism and psychopathy

Evidence

The troll abuses the terms of the attention agreement, by violating the decorum of what is meant to be quasi-conversation with outrageous and intemperate comments—expressing opinions not necessarily sincerely held but said for the purpose of provoking an emotional response. Most people aren’t trolls, but it doesn’t take many. One academic study found that trolling “correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism….[of] all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly, the relationship was specific to trolling behavior.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 986

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the troll as one who violates the attention agreement’s decorum by provoking emotional response rather than sincerely opining.
• CANDY: The study finding that trolling correlates with sadism and psychopathy is a light, tweetable fact.
• XREF: connects to: Trolling is a situational social role rather than a fixed personality trait. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 319; Trolls seek engagement while haters seek only vented aggression — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 336; Character-conditioned hatred invents victims rather than responding to real threats — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2246 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Trolling is a situational social role rather than a fixed personality trait. #contradicts (0.90) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 319
• Trolls provoke for pleasure, not to persuade anyone #corroborates (0.80) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 303
• Trolls seek engagement while haters seek only vented aggression #expands (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 336
• Psychological explanations that stop at irreducible character traits beg the question #contradicts (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1322
• Character-conditioned hatred invents victims rather than responding to real threats #expands (0.72) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2246