If you like humiliating and even hurting others for your own pleasure, a new study suggests you might be a psychopath.
Scientists have found a link between psychopathy and ‘sadism’ – deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation on others.
Everyday examples of sadism include trolling people online, killing video game characters, killing bugs and even sticking pins on voodoo dolls.
So if you engage in these sadistic behaviours – even if it’s just making other people feel embarrassed online – you could be a psychopath.
The experts, from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, warn that sadism might be more common than previously thought.
In disturbing experiments, they found members of the public were more than willing to startle people and inflict harm on bugs.
‘Sadistic pleasure – gratuitous enjoyment from inflicting pain on others – has devastating interpersonal and societal consequences,’ the experts report.
‘[Our study] is the first to assess state sadism directed at both humans and animals.’
Sadism is the act of deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation on others. There’s a common belief that sadism is a rather rare phenomenon, but this new study suggests otherwise (file photo)
For the study, the psychologists did not look at sexual sadism, the unusual bedroom kink of getting sexual pleasure from a partner’s pain or humiliation.
Instead, the focused solely on non-sexual, everyday sadism – a trait that ‘resides within the general population’, prevalent in modern culture.
This is reflected by the popularity of violent movies, violent video games and brutal ‘sports’ such as bullfighting and bare-knuckle boxing.
Of course, more extreme sadistic behaviours include being physically violent or abusive towards other people for pleasure, but the study just explored two examples of ‘everyday sadism’.
In all, 120 volunteers aged between 18 and 55 from the local Maastricht area completed questionnaires assessing their level of the three ‘Dark Triad’ traits –psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism.
To determine their levels of everyday sadism, the participants completed two shocking behavioral tasks – ‘bug-grinding’ and ‘game-blasting’.
In the bug-grinding task, participants were led to believe they killed woodlice by putting them into an adapted coffee-bean grinder.
In actual fact, the woodlice were unharmed and only later participants were shown that the bugs they’d inserted into the contraption were all still alive.
In the bug-grinding task, participants were led to believe they killed woodlice by putting them into an adapted coffee-bean grinder (pictured)
Affecting about 1 per cent of the population, psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by anti-social behaviour, and extreme lack of empathy or remorse (file photo)
Meanwhile, the game-blasting task took its inspiration from the cruel TikTok trend of disrupting golfers mid-swing with the blast of an air horn.
Participants were shown ‘live’ camera footage of a 30-year-old male wearing a pair of headphones while he was playing Tetris.
Participants were told they could administer an irritating blast of noise down his headphones at the touch of a button.
Again, this elaborate set-up was only a ruse, as all the footage of the man was pre-recorded.
Before and after the tasks, participants reported their own levels of pleasure on a five-item scale and the researchers measured the difference.
Overall, the experts found that all three Dark Triad traits were linked with an increase in sadistic pleasure, but none more so than psychopathy.
‘Psychopathy showed the strongest link with gaining pleasure from hurting others,’ the researchers explain.
Enjoyment of the bug grinding was also positively related to coldheartedness – a sub-factor of psychopathy.
Everyday examples of sadism include ‘trolling’ other people online, killing video game characters and even sticking pins on voodoo dolls (file photo)
‘Coldheartedness captures a core aspect of psychopathy, namely the lack of sympathy for victims and an indifference to their suffering,’ they add.
Historically, sadism has been ‘primarily studied in the context of sexual sadism and criminal behaviour’ say the team citing past studies.
But this new study, published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, suggests that it is a widespread tendency.
Interestingly, the participant sample was largely female (88 women versus 32 men) even though prior research suggests that females tend to be less sadistic.
What’s more, many participants were students of the social sciences, who may be less sadistic or more cautious about acting aggressively.
Future studies could use larger samples and even see how other personality traits outside the context of Dark Triad relate to sadistic pleasure.
WHAT IS THE ‘DARK TRIAD’?
The dark triad is a name given to three personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.
When all three traits are found in a single person, it implies a malevolent personality.
All three dark triad traits are conceptually distinct, but have been shown to have an overlap.
Dark Triad comprises three ‘dark’ personality traits – narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy
Narcissism is characterised by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.
Machiavellianism is characterised by manipulation and exploitation of others. It is also often linked to a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception.
Psychopathy is characterised by continuing antisocial behaviour, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.
