The truth about trolls

[Lord Lew]

This is a scientific study just out about our favorite type of poster!

http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/y...issists-psychopaths-and-sadists?tr=MostViewed

It's actually a good read!

 

[Aran]

2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants and procedure
We recruited 418 participants (42.4% female;
M
age=29.2%,
SD
=11.0) from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website (http://www.mturk.com)tocompletesurveyquestionsonline.Thesamplewas restricted to respondents from the United States. The keyquestions regarding trolling and other online behaviors wereembedded in a larger battery of personality questionnaires. Partic-ipants received monetary compensation ($0.50) for their time

3. Study 2
A limitation of Study 1 is that we asked participants to selecttheirfavoriteactivityfromalist of options. Thisnecessitatedacat-egorical index of trolling that likely underestimated the effects.Hence in Study 2, we assessed enjoyment of each commentingactivity (including trolling) on separate continuous scales. To ruleout the possibility that overall Internet use explains relations withtrolling, we also included a question about total time spent onlinefor use as a control variable.


So it was pretty much inevitable that people who were already likely to be heavy internet users (Based on usage of MTurk) selected trolling as their favorite activity online were likely to go for the humorous responses that lead to "zomg narcissism and sadism" results.

I find the study to be flawed, and the results as useful as Brady's statistics on anything gun-related.

Edit:

Sorry, I read the actual study, not just a summary on a pop-psychology website http://www.scribd.com/doc/231541019/Buckels-Trapnell-Paulhus-Trolls-Just-Want-to-Have-Fun

Second edit: Please don't let this sway your view of me as a narcissistic, sadistic *******, that's completely unrelated to my internet behavior.

 

[RueTor]

This is a scientific study just out about our favorite type of poster!

http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/y...issists-psychopaths-and-sadists?tr=MostViewed

It's actually a good read!

Also a good read... "The Comments"
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists/comments

 

[kelmo]

*chuckles* Yeah...

 

[Spiritless]

In reality there aren't too many "trolls" here, tbh. There are a lot of people, however, who like to throw the term "troll" around for people who happen to just disagree with them.

 

[Obsidian]

In reality there aren't too many "trolls" here, tbh. There are a lot of people, however, who like to throw the term "troll" around for people who happen to just disagree with them.

I agree with this statement in general. Civil discussion needs to be encouraged particularly when there are differing viewpoints. The key is to have the discussion with mutual respect and just as you would if you were face-to-face in a public setting. In the end if you cannot agree that is ok. We just need to have self discipline to drop the issue once you acknowledge that this particular conversation is not going toward agreement.

 

[Petra Fyde]

In reality there aren't too many "trolls" here, tbh. There are a lot of people, however, who like to throw the term "troll" around for people who happen to just disagree with them.

Actually I agree with that.
Most of the problems the mods have to deal with come down to personal attacks rather than trolling. Some people seem totally unable to disagree without getting personal about it, referring to the person they are disagreeing with as an idiot, a moron, or some other unpleasant description.

 

[Mervyn]

It's like they took my life, and put it up on screen.

 

[Aran]

Actually I agree with that.
Most of the problems the mods have to deal with come down to personal attacks rather than trolling. Some people seem totally unable to disagree without getting personal about it, referring to the person they are disagreeing with as an idiot, a moron, or some other unpleasant description.

Let's be fair Petra. A lot of the time they're apt descriptors

 

[Petra Fyde]

Let's be fair Petra. A lot of the time they're apt descriptors

That's not the point. Personal attacks are a breach of our rules.
If I can disagree with someone without resorting to childish name calling, so can other people. If they try.

 

[Aran]

That's not the point. Personal attacks are a breach of our rules.
If I can disagree with someone without resorting to childish name calling, so can other people. If they try.

Some things aren't worth the attempt.

 

[THP]

bumps back to the top....

 

[Giggles]

I'm not narcissistic.. People just have a hard time understanding how amazing I am.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Trolls? Here? Never...la

 

[Herman]

100% of the people in this study that selected trolling to be their favorite activity are from canada now there is an intresting fact hehe