Internet trolls and the Dark Tetrad

Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine about some exasperation I was feeling about dealing with trollish behavior in certain threads on jref. He mentioned coming across a paper about what was called the "dark tetrad," four traits evident, at a sub-clinical level, among internet trolls. These traits are: sadism, machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism. In other words, internet trolls are characterized by a desire to make other suffer and a joy experienced at the suffering of others (sadism); a strong desire to manipulate others (machiavellianism); a lack of empathy or sympathy with other human beings (psychopathy) and a focus on themselves to the exclusion of others (nrcissism). Here is an article on the subject.

via JREF Forum http://ift.tt/1j9ahUG