A report published in Aggression and Violent Behavior reveals the relationship between everyday sadism and aggression, including trolling behavior. Researchers say that it is the first-ever systematic review of the study.
Sadism Disorder and Troll Definition
Sadism is the practice of harm, cruelty, humiliation, suffering, or pain (physical, sexual, or psychological) on another person for no other reason than to dominate them and enjoy themselves, according to Psychology Today. Those with more pronounced sadistic tendencies engage in criminal or even sexist behavior such as torture and animal abuse.
Subclinical sadists, also known as everyday sadists, may act cruelly in more mainstream ways, like playing violent video games, watching disturbing movies, pulling practical jokes, and meddling.
On the other hand, a troll is described by Cambridge Dictionary as someone who posts an intentionally offensive or bothersome message online to annoy someone, draw attention to themselves, or cause trouble.
The Relationship Between Trolls and Sadism
The data synthesis included 50 studies from the 627 records, three in the narrative synthesis and 48 in the meta-analysis. The studies used a cross-sectional design and were released between 2013 and 2020. A mixed-gender sample was used except for four female-only and five male-only samples.
There were 22,179 people who participated in the study. Twenty investigations used student-only samples, while 26 used community samples. The majority took place in the US and Europe.
Sadism was assessed using four measures: The Short Sadistic Impulse Scale, The Comprehensive Assessment of Sadistic Tendencies, Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies, and Assessment of Sadistic Personality.
Sadistic Personality Evaluation
The results of aggression were assessed using a variety of metrics. In particular, the following steps were taken for aggression committed offline.
Humor that is aggressive toward others, antisocial behavior, bullying, conflict in close relationships, hazing, proactive aggression, radicalized behavior, reactive aggression, same-sex aggression, sexual aggression such as partner violence, rape, sexual coercion, trait aggression, and violent and criminal attitudes.
On the other hand, cyberbullying, cyberstalking, intimate partner cyberstalking, online antisocial behavior, online trolling behavior, and a propensity for revenge porn are examples of online aggression.
The correlation between sadism and aggression offline had a moderate effect size. Trait aggression was found to have a large effect size, while anger and proactive aggression were found to have intermediate effect sizes. This indicates that sadists may also aggress against innocent others without warning.
Additionally, data analysis revealed a strong correlation between sadism and trolling-- disturbing, upsetting, or harassing others online and other forms of cyber-aggression. This is consistent with earlier research. According to the authors, online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists.
Last but not least, the study discovered that regular sadism is linked to a range of aggressive behaviors, such as sexual aggression, sexual coercion, intimate partner violence, cyberstalking, and radical or extremist behavior.
According to earlier studies, aggressive behaviors such as torturing insects and animals, severe bullying, cyberbullying, and hazing are all associated with high levels of sadism. The current review concluded that even low levels of sadism are linked to violence. Therefore, many sadistic people (especially men) behave aggressively when given the right context.
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