Who do you troll and Why: An investigation into the relationship between the Dark Triad Personalities and online trolling behaviours towards popular and less popular Facebook profiles
Open accessAbstract
This experiment examined the influence of Dark Personalities in trolling behaviour towards popular and less popular Facebook profiles. One-hundred and thirty-five participants were recruited to view two fake Facebook profiles and rate how much they would agree with some trolling comments to each profile, as well as how they perceived themselves in comparison to each profile in terms of social acceptance and rank. In addition, participants completed the Short Dark Personality Questionnaire. Results suggested Psychopathy was positively associated with trolling behaviours while Narcissism was associated with a tendency to see oneself superior to others. Moreover, the higher the Psychopathy score the more likely the participants would troll the popular profile. On the other hand, the higher the Narcissism score the more likely participants were to perceive themselves as superior to the popular profile. These analyses revealed the different influence Dark Personality traits play on different behavioural tendencies. Dynamics among the Dark Personalities in relationship with online behaviours and the implications of the study are discussed.
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Dark triad personality traits are positively associated with online antisocial behaviors, particularly cyberstalking, online trolling, and cyberbullying.
“Several researches reveal that dark triad’s personality traits seem to be positively associated with the problematic addition to the Internet [32] and with online antisocial behaviors, particularly cyberstalking [9,16], online trolling [10,33,34] and cyberbullying [35].”
From Dark Personality Traits and Online Behaviors: Portuguese Versions of Cyberstalking, Online Harassment, Flaming and Trolling Scales (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
The citation is attached to online trolling, not to cyberstalking or cyberbullying. Table 1 reports a positive association between psychopathy and trolling, and between Machiavellianism and trolling toward the less popular profile; Table 2 identifies psychopathy, but not the other two traits, as a significant predictor of trolling. The claim is too broad if read as applying positively to all three Dark Triad traits. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIndividuals with higher scores on psychopathy are more likely to spy on a profile that was considered popular.
“The authors found that narcissism was related to a tendency to see oneself as superior to the popular profile, while psychopathy was positively associated with trolling behaviors; in addition, individuals with higher scores on psychopathy were more likely to spy a profile that was considered popular.”
From Dark Personality Traits and Online Behaviors: Portuguese Versions of Cyberstalking, Online Harassment, Flaming and Trolling Scales (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
The Results (§3.3.1) report a stronger association between psychopathy and trolling scores for the popular profile, and §3.3.2 supports the statement about narcissism and perceived superiority. Neither those results nor the passages found on profile viewing report that people scoring higher on psychopathy were more likely to spy on a popular profile; participants viewed the profiles as part of the study. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredPsychopathy is positively associated with trolling behaviors.
“The authors found that narcissism was related to a tendency to see oneself as superior to the popular profile, while psychopathy was positively associated with trolling behaviors; in addition, individuals with higher scores on psychopathy were more likely to spy a profile that was considered popular.”
From Dark Personality Traits and Online Behaviors: Portuguese Versions of Cyberstalking, Online Harassment, Flaming and Trolling Scales (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
Narcissism is related to a tendency to see oneself as superior to the popular profile.
“The authors found that narcissism was related to a tendency to see oneself as superior to the popular profile, while psychopathy was positively associated with trolling behaviors; in addition, individuals with higher scores on psychopathy were more likely to spy a profile that was considered popular.”
From Dark Personality Traits and Online Behaviors: Portuguese Versions of Cyberstalking, Online Harassment, Flaming and Trolling Scales (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
Dimensions of the dark triad of personality explain online behaviors.
“These associations reinforce the behavioral characteristics of these individuals and how they may behave on the Internet, allowing us to suggest that dimensions of the dark triad of personality explain online behaviors [4,9,10,16,20,32,34,35,38,39,63].”
From Dark Personality Traits and Online Behaviors: Portuguese Versions of Cyberstalking, Online Harassment, Flaming and Trolling Scales (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
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- Authors
- Lopes, B., & Yu, H.
- Affiliations
- De Montfort University (GB)
- Venue
- Computers in Human Behavior
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-12
- Volume
- 77
- Pages
- 69-76
- ISSN
- 0747-5632 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2745615275
- Cited by
- 91
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 8.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Computers in Human Behavior (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DMU Open Research Archive (De Montfort University) (submittedVersion)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- De Montfort University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Keywords
- Dark Triad, trolling, psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, Facebook profiles, social acceptance, online harassment
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