We also included an open-ended question to screen for inattention and assessed start/finish times for outliers.

The questionnaire took approximately 20–30 min to complete and included an attention check. After providing informed consent, participants ( N = 663) were presented with an operational definition (see supplementary material) of trolling, followed by the inclusion question, “do you troll other people/groups online?” Only those who answered yes ( N = 266 40.12%) could commence the questionnaire. Here, trolling may be a product of increased antagonism (i.e., low agreeableness), increased impulsivity (i.e., low conscientiousness), assertiveness and a need to establish social status (i.e., higher extraversion Zezulka & Seigfried-Spellar, 2016).Īfter receiving institution ethical approval, participants were recruited to complete a voluntary, anonymous online questionnaire via social media (e.g., Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram) advertisements. People with lower agreeableness, lower conscientiousness (Buckels et al., 2014), and higher extraversion (Zezulka & Seigfried-Spellar, 2016) also perpetrate more trolling – although extraversion results are mixed. People with higher subclinical psychopathy and sadism also perpetrate more trolling, likely due to their lower empathy and a deceitful interpersonal style (i.e., psychopathy March & Steele, 2020), and their enjoyment of hurting others (i.e., sadism March, 2019).

Possibly, this is due to their more antisocial use of social media (Howard et al., 2019), their higher dominance and competitiveness (March & Steele, 2020), and viewing trolling as having a functional purpose (Brubaker et al., 2021). Although women engage in other antisocial online behaviour more than men (e.g., intimate partner cyberstalking March et al., 2022), men are more likely to perpetrate trolling (Buckels et al., 2014).

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