Predicting trolling behavior from dark personality, problematic use of new technologies, and sex

PABLO GONZALEZ; SANTIAGO RESETT

San Francisco

Congreso; 30º Association for Psychological Science's Annual Convention; 2018

Association for Psychological Sciences

New technologies have been characterized for bringing a whole of positive advances in many different ways in our daily lives, but these advances have a negative outcome too, like internet addiction, cyberbullying and trolling. Trolling is the practice of behaving in a deceptive, destructive or disruptive manner on the internet, with no instrumental purpose (Buckels, Trapnell & Paulhus, 2014). It is an important risk factor for the mental health of both aggressors and victims. In Latin America, and despite its big relevance, almost none research had been done on the subject. This study focuses on the prediction of trolling behavior from sex, problematic use of internet and dark personality (machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism). Sample: 437 Argentinian adults, both sexes (66% female) with a mean age of 24 years old. All measures were taken by an online battery in the following order: 1) a sociodemographic questionnaire; 2) assessment of Internet Trolling (GAIT; Buckels, Trapnell & Paulhus, 2014); 3) Short Dark Triad Scale (SD3, Jones & Paulhus, 2014); 4) Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies (VAST; Paulhus & Jones, 2015) and 5) Problematic use of new technologies (EAIL; Figueroa et al, 2011). A hierarchical regression analysis was performed to predict trolling behavior, placing in the first block dark personality scores (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism) plus sadistic tendencies scores (direct and vicarious sadism) and in the second block, total scores of problematic use of new technologies (symptomatology and dysfunctionality) and sex (0 = male; 1 = female). Results showed that the first block predicted 28% of the variance and with the second block the prediction scale up to 42% being significative (p < .001). Significant predictors were psychopathy (t = 3.24, ß = .17, p < .001), vicarious sadism (t = 4.68, ß = .22, p < .001), direct sadism (t = 5.35, ß = .27, p < .001), dysfunctional use of Internet (t = 3.04, ß = .14, p < .003), and being male (t = -2.66, ß = -.11, p < .008). Results suggest that problematic use of new technologies is a risk factor above and beyond dark personality. Future longitudinal studies should exam how the relation between dark personality, problematic use of Internet and trolling is