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Why People Become Internet Trolls
Empathy deficit
The absence of nonverbal feedback leads to an “empathy deficit,” and this is what sociopaths suffer from.
If someone says something negative in person and makes you cry, he/she will possibly feel uncomfortable. Unless they're psychopaths, your misery will generate an empathic response and lead them to have mercy. If someone tweets something negative and makes you cry, no amount of emojis can transmit the image of a crying person. If there is no social cue to evoke an empathic response, they might continue their negative assault.
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The dark tetrad
Psychologists have found a link between a troll's behavior and a few personality traits:
- Sadism: obtaining pleasure from another’s distress.
- Psychopathy: being unable of empathy and regret.
- Machiavellianism: manipulative behavior
- Narcissism: the need for admiration.
Understanding trolls
After spending years building relationships with trolls and trying to understand them, journalist Ginger Gorman shares her findings in the the book Troll Hunting:
- They are not uneducated persons, that lack social skills and live in their parents' basement.They have partners, children, and full-time jobs.
- They show leadership skills as commanders of large trolling gatherings.
- They are socially intelligent and capable of to identifying users’ weaknesses with precision.
Empathy deficit
The absence of nonverbal feedback leads to an “empathy deficit,” and this is what sociopaths suffer from.
If someone says something negative in person and makes you cry, he/she will possibly feel uncomfortable. Unless they're psychopaths, your misery will generate an empathic response and lead them to have mercy. If someone tweets something negative and makes you cry, no amount of emojis can transmit the image of a crying person. If there is no social cue to evoke an empathic response, they might continue their negative assault.
Anonymity can trigger deindividuation
This means a temporary loss of a person's identity leading to behavior that is conflicting with their character. Anonymity offers protection from real-world social repercussions, and this has profound effects on human behavior.
If a lack of nonverbal cues is what makes us detached from the other person’s suffering, deindividuation is what makes us detached from the awareness of our misconduct.
Trolling isn’t black and white
When we denounce trolls as intrinsically malicious people, we limit our understanding of what may trigger these behaviors.
Trolling is somewhere in the grey between prosocial human and antisocial primate. Ultimately, our disposition for antisocial behavior in the real world is likely to predict similar online behavior.
Managing our inner trolls
- Use anonymity only where it is necessary.
- Foster empathy consciously, because it doesn’t come naturally to internet-based interactions.
- Awareness of how we respond to distasteful comments can create space between us and our behavior.
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People that cause grief
We all know a few people that cause grief, not merely because they have a bad day but because they have severe problems and are unwilling to change.
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High-conflict people (HCP)
- Narcissistic HCPs: They may seem charming at first but think themselves to be superior. They insult, humiliate, mislead, and lack empathy while demanding respect and attention.
- Borderline HCPs: They start out friendly but can suddenly change into being extremely angry. During this rage, they may seek revenge for minor insults.
- Antisocial (or Sociopathic/Psychopathic) HCPs There extreme charm is a cover for their drive to dominate others through lying, stealing, publicly humiliating people, physically injuring them, and sometimes murdering them.
While these are disorders and these people are suffering, mental health professionals would advise you to keep your distance from them, if at all possible.
Behavior Patterns Of HCP
Everybody has bad days or weeks. To tell if someone is a High Conflict Person, we can look for four traits of behavior.
- Lots of all-or-nothing thinking: When problems arise, it is their solution or no solution. They don't compromise or listen to different points of view.
- Intense or unmanaged emotions: HCPs become very emotional about their points of view. Their responses are out of proportion to whatever is happening.
- Extreme behavior or threats: They engage in extreme negative behavior that includes physical harm, spreading lies about someone else, emotional manipulation, or obsessive contact.
- A preoccupation with blaming others: They frequently blame other people close to them or people in authority over them.
Nobody is perfect, but if someone has all four traits, they almost certainly are an HCP.
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The lack of verbal and nonverbal social cues
Any email message we send has the potential to be read in the wrong context, or misinterpreted entirely by the recipient. Even if we have smiley faces in the email, it is no match ...
A Goldmine of Miscommunications
Due to the limitations and the multifacetedness of language, emails often lead to miscommunication, guessed intentions, or total awareness of what the person is trying to convey.
The problem is further complicated if you are writing to someone whom you haven’t met in person.
Subject Line Emails
These types of emails (with the entire email is a sentence in the subject line, with no email body, just the signature)are usually sent by a very direct person, that either feels very busy or that the problem can't be solved simply in an email, so it's too much for them to go into it all.
If you respond with more than 2 sentences, they are probably not going to read it, so you should just get on the phone or get over there in person.
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Inability to distinguish
We tend to assume that confident people have more potential for leadership.
However, there is little overlap between how good people think they are at something, and how good the...
Charismatic individuals
We seem to want leaders who are charming and entertaining, but a stand-up comedian is not the same as an effective leader.
The best leaders are humble rather than charismatic, to the point of being boring.
Narcissistic individuals
We've always admired famous people, but our admiration for people who admire themselves is on the rise. But true leaders keep their narcissism in check.
Popular advice focuses on loving yourself above all else. And this creates leaders who are unaware of their limitations. They see leadership as an entitlement.
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