A functionalist approach to online trolling
Online trolling is often linked to sadism and psychopathy. Yet, little research has assessed why people high in these traits seek online environments to achieve their nefarious goals. We employ a functionalist approach to examine whether people high in sadism and psychopathy are motivated to seek th...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2023-10-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1211023/full |
| _version_ | 1827795977277276160 |
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| author | Lewis Nitschinsk Stephanie J. Tobin Eric J. Vanman |
| author_facet | Lewis Nitschinsk Stephanie J. Tobin Eric J. Vanman |
| author_sort | Lewis Nitschinsk |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Online trolling is often linked to sadism and psychopathy. Yet, little research has assessed why people high in these traits seek online environments to achieve their nefarious goals. We employ a functionalist approach to examine whether people high in sadism and psychopathy are motivated to seek the affordances of online environments (e.g., anonymity) to reveal their malevolent self-aspects by engaging in trolling behavior. A sample of 515 university undergraduates (Mage = 20.47) read vignettes depicting trolling incidents and rated the acceptability of the perpetrators’ actions and whether they had ever written similar comments. Participants then completed measures of psychopathy, sadism, and toxic anonymous motivations. We find that toxic anonymous motivations partially mediate the relationship between psychopathy and sadism, and online trolling. Whereas trolling is often understood through its underlying personality traits, toxic motivations to seek anonymity may be a more proximal predictor of who is likely to troll online. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T18:58:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e9460344a8534b35bcd094828eb3dea1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T18:58:01Z |
| publishDate | 2023-10-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-e9460344a8534b35bcd094828eb3dea12023-10-10T14:43:42ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782023-10-011410.3389/fpsyg.2023.12110231211023A functionalist approach to online trollingLewis Nitschinsk0Stephanie J. Tobin1Eric J. Vanman2School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, AustraliaSchool of Psychology and Counselling, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, AustraliaSchool of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, AustraliaOnline trolling is often linked to sadism and psychopathy. Yet, little research has assessed why people high in these traits seek online environments to achieve their nefarious goals. We employ a functionalist approach to examine whether people high in sadism and psychopathy are motivated to seek the affordances of online environments (e.g., anonymity) to reveal their malevolent self-aspects by engaging in trolling behavior. A sample of 515 university undergraduates (Mage = 20.47) read vignettes depicting trolling incidents and rated the acceptability of the perpetrators’ actions and whether they had ever written similar comments. Participants then completed measures of psychopathy, sadism, and toxic anonymous motivations. We find that toxic anonymous motivations partially mediate the relationship between psychopathy and sadism, and online trolling. Whereas trolling is often understood through its underlying personality traits, toxic motivations to seek anonymity may be a more proximal predictor of who is likely to troll online.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1211023/fulltrollingsadismpsychopathyanonymityonlinemotivations |
| spellingShingle | Lewis Nitschinsk Stephanie J. Tobin Eric J. Vanman A functionalist approach to online trolling Frontiers in Psychology trolling sadism psychopathy anonymity online motivations |
| title | A functionalist approach to online trolling |
| title_full | A functionalist approach to online trolling |
| title_fullStr | A functionalist approach to online trolling |
| title_full_unstemmed | A functionalist approach to online trolling |
| title_short | A functionalist approach to online trolling |
| title_sort | functionalist approach to online trolling |
| topic | trolling sadism psychopathy anonymity online motivations |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1211023/full |
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