The Psyche of Internet Trolls
October 30, 2009 at 8:48 AM Leave a comment
I bring a lot of experience with Internet trolls to this blog from the News Hounds. They were all over that site so I found this study about their mindset pretty interesting.
Ohio State professor Kimberly Rios Morrison polled Stanford University students about what they thought about students drinking alcohol. What she discovered was that the students with the most extreme pro-alcohol stance expressed their opinions most readily, in general because they believed that they were voicing the majority opinion. But polls showed that the majority of students had a moderate to anti-alcohol stance. When pro-alcohol students were shown evidence that most people didn’t support their views, they were far more reluctant to express their extreme opinions.
Said Morrison: It is only when they have this sense that they are in the majority that extremely pro-alcohol students are more willing to express their views on the issue.
Sounds like this study explains internet trolling and flame wars too. People with extreme views who are extremely loud about them manage to delude themselves into thinking everybody agrees.
Makes sense. The winger Hannity-lover-types who attacked us at News Hounds were sure; absolutely positively sure, that they were right about everything and that people with their point of view comprised the vast majority of Americans. It’s no wonder they were blown away when Obama won.
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