Why does sadism troll? The role of negative emotional reactions from others

Abstract

Internet Trolling refers to a behavior pattern in which individuals deliberately disrupt normal network communication, provoking other network users’ negative emotional reactions. Most previous researches focused on the correlation between sadism and Internet Trolling, but did not explore the impact of environmental factors on the two. Thus, Study 1 explored the causal relationships among sadism, Internet anonymity and Internet Trolling. And based on this, the intrinsic motivation of sadistic Internet Trolling was further identified. Study 2 explored the role of hurting others’ pleasure in the relationship between sadism and Internet Trolling through three sub-studies (2a, 2b, and 2c). The results suggest that high sadism takes Internet Trolling in anonymous scenarios, in order to feel more pleasure from the negative emotional reactions of other network users.