Is a World Without Cyber Aggression Possible?
The three personality traits driving cyber aggression and the presumably impossible task of stopping them.
As a child who has played many online video games, I witnessed aggressive cyber behavior often. In shooting and war-like games, it was commonplace for 10-year-olds to threaten each other and their families via voice chat. The back-and-forth threats persisted until the game finished or one kid had to sleep.
When I began using Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram, I noticed adults used similar violent language. But seeing their explicit insults was more disturbing—an adult is more conscious of their behavior and its consequences than a kid.
Even public figures are not immune to toxicity. For example, Elon Musk once tweeted he didn't like the new Lord of the Rings series. Instead of generating friendly debate about the show, many people attacked him, calling him a fraud, immature, and even a child murderer.
Cyber aggressors have a major impact on how people interact on the internet. By understanding what drives their behavior, we can make informed guesses on how to stop it.
To understand why toxic internet users behave the way they do, we must see what's influencing their actions.
Anti-social traits are a key cause, as they make people more likely to hurt others. For example, because a psychopath struggles to empathize with people's pain, they won't know when they are hurting others. Thus, they will either continue to cause pain or exacerbate it. Cyber aggressors often have one or many of the dark tetrad, anti-social personality traits:
Narcissism, which validates manipulation
Sadism, which makes people gain pleasure from inflicting pain
Machiavellism, which validates deceit and pain if it fulfills a purpose
Psychopathy, which makes people less capable of understanding the repercussions of hurting others
To illustrate these traits, it could be helpful to identify them in well-known fictional characters. Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones is a sadist who gains pleasure from castrating people. Wendy Byrde from The Ozarks series exhibits narcissism when manipulating people to get what she wants. Or take Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, a narcissist and a psychopath who only feels joy from killing others and looking at himself in the mirror.
Having these traits does not guarantee the person will hurt others. My research shows that many variables—like genetics and parental upbringing—can influence whether an individual with an aggressive inclination will hurt others.
It also doesn't mean a person with a dark trait cannot socialize. The military benefits from people who can inflict pain without remorse during interrogations. I presume many score high on psychopathy. Yet, many don't show signs of psychopathy outside of work.
So, if having a dark tetrad personality trait alone doesn't guarantee online aggressive behavior, what does?
The Three Traits of a Toxic Internet User
Researcher Anna Kurek believes those with dark traits are more likely to hurt others because they have a false self-image. The term encapsulates a person who doesn't act as they would instinctively act and has an inaccurate view of who they are.
For instance, let's say I like a girl who is Montaigne's number one fan, and to date her, I must like him too. If I tell her I'm also his fan, I would be inclined to do activities I don't enjoy, such as re-reading Montaigne’s vague essays. If I lie to myself long enough, in this scenario and others, I can lose the sense of who I am and develop a false-self image.
In 2019, Kurek worked with two researchers to test if there were a link between three variables:
False self-perception
Dark Tetrad personality traits
Online disinhibition (lack of online restraint)
They asked 709 adolescents (50.5% female and 49.5% male) to answer various questionnaires. Then, they analyzed their habits, online behaviors, and personality traits. Because the results from the Machiavellism scale weren't reliable, they did not measure it.
Researchers found a positive correlation between narcissism and psychopathy, and disinhibition online. Two reasons explain this link. First, self-centered and uncaring people are more likely to behave violently online, like by spreading rumors to gain attention or humiliating others. Second, people with these traits tend to have a false self-image, and those that do are more prone to online disinhibition:
"It is possible that the characteristic impulsivity frequently recognized as a common trait of psychopathy may be exacerbated in digital settings when the fragile self-concept of these individuals is tested, resulting in an increased response to perceived provoked attacks or through the disinhibition of social restraints." Kurek et al.
They also found sadists were also prone to online disinhibition. But it didn't matter if the person had a false or accurate view of who they were—they simply acted evil. This suggests sadists could be the most extreme online pain inflictors, as pleasure drives them.
In a previous post, I explained how the dopamine system could instigate evil actions. The system can encourage a person to repeat a pain-inducing action repeatedly. Those with dark traits might insult Elon and others because their dopamine system classifies the action as worth repeating.
Those with dark traits might keep insulting Elon because their dopamine systems tell them to.
In a study conducted by the Members of a Behavior and Cognitive Science lab, researchers found that narcissists disproportionately hurt people. They realized that the pain they cause could be exacerbated if society marginalized the narcissist. An explanation could be that when no one is there to "confirm the superiority" of the narcissist, they have no one to "validate" their false self-image. So they let evil inclinations rule their actions.
Most research suggests that anti-social personality traits influence cyber aggression. Since we are born with these traits, in many ways, turning the internet into a civil place is a challenge of going against our nature. Can such an internet exist?
Is it possible for cyber-aggressive people to transform?
Social personality traits include extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Deliberate work can change them. For example, if you want to be more extroverted, doing activities that an extroverted person does can help you.
A 15-week study by psychologists tracked changes in personality traits in close to 400 students. Subjects completed tasks that a person at the extremes of a trait commonly did. The underlying hypothesis was that by acting like someone you want to become, you could better resemble them. For example, in the case that someone wanted to be less neurotic for one day, their task would be to hug a close friend to imitate behavior exhibited by a non-neurotic person. In the 15th week, analyses showed subjects improved in their desired personality dimension.
"Merely wanting to change does not appear to be sufficient to evoke trait growth; successfully changing one's personality traits may require actively and successfully implementing behaviors to change oneself." Hudson et al.
Without knowing this study, I can speak firsthand to this after reducing my neuroticism levels over the last four years.
Neuroticism is a common trait in my close family, and I despise it. So, to offset that trait, I meditate, follow stoic principles like death awareness, and practice mindfulness. If I had to guess, I would have scored as mildly neurotic if I had taken a Big Five personality test back then. Today I'm not neurotic, according to this scale.
Unfortunately, with dark personality traits, most people don't tend to "get better."
Elinor Greenberg, a therapist specializing in treating narcissistic disorder, found that those that recognize their actions as wrong and try to change can become less narcissistic. But she notes few people with this trait want to change or see themselves as flawed.
The evidence looks less optimistic for sadists and psychopaths.
A 2022 paper put around 1200 people related to a psychopath through a 90-item survey. The questions assessed if the psychopaths they knew above 50 years old got better or worse over time. Less than 1% of surveyees said the person exhibited milder psychopathic behavior. "As he aged," one participant said, "he seemed to care less about hiding his behavior, and he seemed to openly enjoy being cruel."
There is not much research on whether sadists can improve with age, but a 2019 study might shed light. An experimental psychologist took over two thousand people through eight studies to determine if they could harm people. They found sadists could inflict pain and gain pleasure from it. But, against what many think, experience emotional pain after they do the pain-inflicting. This seems to suggest a sadist will keep inflicting pain to regain the "feel rewarded" state. But this also raises the question of whether a sadist can remind themselves of the pain they experience when they hurt others to stop doing it.
I like to dream of an internet where non-aggressive debate can exist. One where I post a polarizing opinion, people oppose my thesis, and, after some back and forth, we develop a more robust hypothesis. But such an internet doesn't seem attainable in the short term. Personality traits, which may be inherited, impact an individual's odds of being aggressive online. Some evidence shows the levels of a negative personality trait can decrease. But, since change commonly happens when individuals who are often unwilling to change decide to do it in a society reluctant to help them, I'm more likely to be called a moron tomorrow than to make an online friend.