What makes a troll successful

Trolls are also motivated by what psychologists call "atypical social rewards". Generally, people are motivated by creating a positive social environment typical, positive social rewards.

We wondered if different types of empathy could explain such seemingly pointless, harmful behaviour. Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognise and understand other people's emotions.

But affective empathy is the ability to experience and internalise other people's emotions. Put simply, cognitive empathy is the ability to predict how another person will feel and affective empathy is sharing the emotional experience.

As expected, people who were more likely to troll had significantly lower levels of affective empathy. Surprisingly, people with high levels of cognitive empathy and psychopathic traits were more likely to troll.

One area to change behaviour might be to teach trolls to become more empathic, in particular, targeting their low levels of affective empathy. There's strong evidence structured empathy training improves people's empathy. Most mental health experts say psychopathy cannot be cured. However, as trolls show higher levels of nonclinical psychopathy traits not enough to meet criteria for a clinical disorder interventions may be more successful.

One psychopathy intervention that has previously indicated success in reducing antisocial behaviour and criminal activity is the decompression model. Here, people are rewarded for every positive, prosocial behaviour behaviour that benefits another , with the aim of increasing and reinforcing good behaviour.

Not all trolls exhibit traits like low affective empathy or psychopathy. Some may simply be motivated by negative social rewards, like creating mayhem. And creating mayhem motivates the troll to keep going back for more. Due to the addictive nature of rewards , there may be an addictive element to trolling. So, other strategies that have been applied to addictive behaviours for instance, internet addiction could be used to modify trolls' behaviour.

Cognitive behaviour therapy or CBT, a talk therapy that targets negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviours , self-help treatment groups, group therapy, and even family therapy are all effective methods for treating addictions, particularly internet addictions.

CBT has been shown to be a particularly effective. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of business psychology at University College London and vice-president of research and innovation at Hogan Assessment Systems. He is co-founder of metaprofiling. When death goes viral: mourning celebrities on social media. Kim Kardashian: why we love her and the psychology of celebrity worship. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media Network membership.

Find out more here. Behind the online comments: the psychology of internet trolls. The TV historian and Cambridge professor Mary Beard has revealed that she wrote a letter of recommendation for one of her trolls. Reuse this content. How do they know just the thing to say to upset you, no matter how hard you try to stay above the fray? Now there's an answer. In a new study by Natalie Sest and Evita March of Federation University in Australia, researchers gave internet users questionnaires that tested for various personality traits and for propensity to trolling behavior, looking for the specific traits that would make someone likely to become a troll.

In the process they got some clues as to why people become trolls, and why trolls are so very, very good at making their victims feel very, very bad. They began with a simple observation you probably have made yourself: Although both genders become trolls, men are likelier to do so than women.

Beyond that, things get more interesting:. Now, before you start thinking that the average internet troll has dismembered bodies hidden in the basement, let me note that there are different degrees of psychopathy and many people have some amount of it without turning into serial killers. Psychopathy is broadly defined as a lack of empathy or feeling for others, an inability to feel guilt, and an ability to manipulate through charm. Other than in the movies, most psychopaths are not violent.

On the other hand, thrill-seeking and acting on impulse are associated with psychopathy. That may explain why psychopaths find trolling so enjoyable. It could be that "creating mayhem online is a central motivator to troll," the researchers write. That's why most experts agree that the best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them and not respond in any way except perhaps to block their messages.