The psychology of internet trolls

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Listen up everybody, Arthur Brooks can eat a plate of hot trash. Huh? That was the first comment the CBS News contributor got in one of his online columns and his earliest experience of internet trolls. For the record, Arthur, I would never say anything like that.

[00:00:17]>> you wouldn't, man.

[00:00:17]>> not in person. Yeah.

[00:00:19]>> [laughter] >> Are you my internet troll? I I I might be.

[00:00:24]The hot trash night, yeah.

[00:00:25]Um so you're hardly alone in being receiving end of some of this vitriol and anger online. Obviously, so many people are.

[00:00:33]Uh you know, I've been thinking about your article that you wrote and one of the things that we have seen since time immemorial is people with a pitchfork pitchfork setting fire to people they don't like.

[00:00:44]>> right.

[00:00:44]>> Perhaps the main difference now is that they'd have to come back to their families and communities and now they can hide behind the anonymity of an anonymous Twitter handle.

[00:00:53]>> the perfect ecosystem for people who that we call trolls today. And if you spend any time on social media or any time in the comment section after a news article, you're going to find that it gets really toxic really quickly. So as a behavioral scientist and also as a as a writer in public, I wanted to know who are these people and I started to do a little bit of research into it and it turns out they're not like just you and me. It turns out that they're different.

[00:01:17]They're from the 7% of the population that have sociopathic characteristics.

[00:01:22]They're disproportionately drawn from what we call dark triads, people with narcissism, Machiavellianism, meaning I'm willing to hurt you, and even psychopathy. They have psychopathic traits, feel mean they feel no empathy or remorse, and they enjoy hurting you to to to and and this is why we can't say that these are ordinary people.

[00:01:40]>> Does it seem that there are more trolls out there because I I basically find when I go on Twitter or on other social media, the vast majority of the comments are trolls, but 7% is actually fewer people than I expected.

[00:01:53]>> Yeah, but you're disproportionately drawing from that population. They're the ones that are actually trying to start internet conflict. They're the ones who are actually insulting other people. They're the ones who are actually trying to get you all fired up because they enjoy seeing the emotional turmoil. They're getting their thrills from it. Now, there are others who say they don't. We actually have studies that ask internet trolls why they're trolling. Some of them say, "For social justice." But, guess what else we find?

[00:02:17]People who are activists, political activists, they tend to be psychopathic as well.

[00:02:22]This is one of the things we need to keep in mind.

[00:02:24]>> On either side of the political spectrum >> of the aisle. If you're a real activist and you want to fire people up and get people angry, there's a reason you like people to be angry.

[00:02:32]>> So, there are some parallels there.

[00:02:33]>> There are.

[00:02:34]Listen, let me just have a moment of transparency. As confident as I may seem on exterior, on the interior, I'm a people pleaser.

[00:02:41]>> Yeah. And even as a football player, I would move right past the compliments.

[00:02:47]Right.

[00:02:47]>> And I would hyper-focus on the negative comments. And I realized at one point I was complicit in my own torture. Almost like a glutton for listening to these trolls, and it was really affecting me.

[00:03:00]And I didn't know why. Right.

[00:03:01]What is it about the person that hyper-fixates on what the trolls are saying? Well, this is an important thing to keep in mind. We have what's called a negativity bias. Homo sapiens, human beings, have more brain tissue dedicated to negative emotions than positive emotions. Why? Because 250,000 years ago, when our brains were in their current state, this is when evolution took us to where we are, it was more important that you have negative emotions than positive emotions. They keep you alive. That's your alarm system. Today, it's maladapted to look for the negative comments, to to look for the little tiny criticism. One bad thing, I mean, it's like, "Hey, this is You're so great. You're so Your suit is so nice. You're so good on TV." And one guy is like, "I don't know about that suit." You're like, "Ugh."

[00:03:43]Somebody didn't like the suit. One out of 10? And you're a sensitive soul, which is one of the reasons that you're so empathetic and you're so great to watch on television, but it's going to be hard for you too. And so that's one of the reasons that we have to be cognizant of what's actually happening with our brains and stay out of the comments. It's excellent advice and you're not alone, by the way. Don't Don't feel [laughter] that way. But these are also places where people go to engage and talk in an online space because we no longer have the town square. I know you say not to engage with these, but where's that line between debate and too much?

[00:04:16]>> Yeah, so the whole point is that disagreement has to be about the issues.

[00:04:20]Trollery, trolls are talking about you.

[00:04:22]When they make it personal, it becomes trolling. Now, you can have strong disagreements. I have strong disagreements all the time. But when it gets into insults that are very personal, that's the time to turn it off because that's actually something that's not about the issues, it's about the person. And that's all destructive.

[00:04:36]>> Now, I turn into Dikembe Mutombo in the '90s. I just block it. No, no, no. Block party on Twitter. All right, Arthur Brooks, thank you so much. All right,