The Gentleman's Guide To Forum Spies (spooks, feds, etc.)

[dan at geer.org]

http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/trolls-just-want-to-have-fun.pdf

Trolls just want to have fun
Erin E. Buckels, Paul D. Trapnell, Delroy L. Paulhus
Personality and Individual Differences, v67 (2014), pp97-102

In two online studies (total N = 1215), respondents completed
personality inventories and a survey of their Internet commenting
styles.  Overall, strong positive associations emerged among online
commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity,
pointing to a common construct underlying the measures.  Both studies
revealed similar patterns of relations between trolling and the
Dark Tetrad (*) of personality: trolling correlated positively with
sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, using both enjoyment
ratings and identity scores.  Of all personality measures, sadism
showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly,
the relationship was specific to trolling behavior.  Enjoyment of
other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated
to sadism.  Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation
of everyday sadism.


(*) Dark Tetrad: sadism, psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism