Socio-Psychological Characteristics of People Involved in Network Trolling

Abstract

Nowadays, more and more people are using different Internet resources to communicate with society. In terms of this, an individual can develop different specific forms of not quite traditional and not quite acceptable types of internet communication. This article aims at presenting the results of the research devoted to studying socio-psychological characteristics of people involved in network trolling. Global technical and social changes in the modern world make the subject of the research up-to-date. These changes influence both society as a whole and an individual participating in the process of communication, as well as the internet processes of communication themselves. Ninety-eight respondents have participated in the research. All the respondents were males aged from 20 to 25. Sixty-eight of them were internet trolls, thirty of them were not involved in internet trolling. The empirical research was carried out with the help of the following psychodiagnostic methods: the Sentence Completion Test by Sacks and Levy, H. Eysenck personality temperament test, Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory, the authors’ questionnaire for diagnosing reasons for trolling for each respondent. The article compares the young people involved in internet trolling of the people and young men who have nothing to do with internet trolling. The empirical data presented and analysed allow one to draw a quantitative and qualitative characteristics of both groups’ psychological peculiarities. On the basis of the data received the authors conclude that melancholic personalities are mostly involved in network trolling, the next personality type is the choleric one. The respondents involved in trolling are characterized by such socio-psychological features as passive aggression and a reduced sense of guilt.