Motivation and emotion/Book/2023/Sadism motivation
What motivates sadism and what can be done about it?
Overview[edit | edit source]
Specialist Charles Graner and his colleagues were found guilty of the maltreatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib military prison during the early years of the United States occupation of Iraq. The details of their treatment of detainees is shocking, and the pictorial evidence submitted to the courts during their trials showed them gleefully torturing these prisoners (e.g., see Figure 1), a horrific real-life instance exemplifying sadistic behaviour. Graner served six and half years of a ten-year sentence for his crimes and received a dishonourable discharge from the United States military, with several of his offending peers receiving similar sentences. |
We have all likely experienced pain from the words or actions of another, and have likely similarly caused this pain to others too, though how did it make you feel to cause harm? Did you feel grief, remorse, sadness, or did you experience pleasure? If you answered with pleasure, you may be a sadist. Sadism is the intentional harm of others motivated by the pleasure and gratification of the perpetrator (Buckels et al., 2013).
Within psychology, sadism has been conceptually addressed through both the DSM, and in trait psychology through the concept of dark personality (Paulhaus & Williams, 2002) with most contemporary research and discussion focusing on the sub-clinical sadism in relation to the general population. Our understanding of dark personality and sub-clinical sadism is owed to Dr. Delroy Paulhaus, Dr. Kevin Williams and Dr. Erin Buckels whose works have driven the constructs, measures and understanding of sub-clinical sadism and the broad dark personality trait construct of the Dark Tetrad. Motivational theories, such as self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), are useful and complementary frameworks in understanding and managing the potentially maladaptive strategies of sadists in addressing their psychological needs. Psychological researchers and clinicians utilise their understanding of sadism to provide therapeutic interventions for patients and to inform approaches to manage or reduce this problem behaviour in institutional and online settings.
Focus questions:
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What is sadism?[edit | edit source]
The term sadism was originally coined in reference to the life and writings of Marquis De Sade (see Figure 2), whose fictional works featured themes of sexual sadism and violence, and whose non-fiction works advocated for the amoral sexually depraved lifestyle he lead. He was famously arrested after outraging Napoleon by sending him one of his depraved novels, and later died in prison.
Within psychology, sadism, or sadistic behaviour, is understood as cruel and harmful behaviour that is motivated by the excitement and or pleasure of the perpetrator (Buckels et al., 2013) and has been conceptually understood through the diagnostic and statistical model of mental disorders (DSM), and personality psychology through trait theory.
Sadistic personality disorder and the DSM[edit | edit source]
Psychological researchers and practitioners had originally conceptualised and managed sadistic behaviours through the classification sadistic personality disorder, which was included as an appendix in the DSM-III-R. The sadistic personality disorder appendix of the DSM-II-R was removed from later versions of the DSM due to fears that it would create a legal defense for sadistic behaviours. The removal of sadistic personality disorder from the DSM leaves the trait theory perspective of sadism as the dominant theoretical construct used to research and profile sadistic behaviours.
Sadism, personality psychology, the dark triad and dark tetrad[edit | edit source]
Within trait theory and personality psychology, dark personality traits were initially conceptualised through the Dark Triad, with the original three traits being that of narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy (Paulhaus & Williams, 2002). In personality psychology sadism is referred to as either subclinical sadism or everyday sadism and was introduced into the corpus of dark personality as the fourth type through the conceptual expansion of the dark triad into the dark tetrad (Johnson et al., 2019).
Trait psychological research continues to show overlap and commonality between the dark core of the psychopathy and sadism traits, however sadism continues to demonstrate discrete trait value through its descriptive accuracy, and predictive validity around the motivation to harm others for pleasure (Buckels et al., 2013). Further, the nature of sadistic personality can be understood through two independent manifestations, that of direct sadism where instigating harm of others causes pleasure, or vicarious sadism where the spectacle of others pain causes pleasure (Paulhaus and Jones, 2015).
The psychometric measurement and testing of sadism[edit | edit source]
In order to research, assess and treat sadism, and to properly evaluate its construct validity and predictive validity, researchers have developed a range of constructs and item scales to psychometrically assess trait sadism.
The below table details and summarises a selection of commonly used, and useful psychometric measures associated with the research and treatment of sadism and dark personality.
| Psychometric measure | Summary |
|---|---|
| Short dark tetrad 4 (SD4) | Following the expansion of the dark triad into the dark tetrad, the SD4 was created as a successor of the SD3, offering a refined four factor model that, beyond original measures of narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism, includes the discretely measurable and valid trait of sadism (Paulhaus et al., 2021). |
| HEXACO | The HEXACO model is a generalisable trait taxonomy of personality devised by Ashton and Lee (2007) it was developed with the aim of improving upon the construct of the five-factor model.
Notably, in relation to sadism and dark personality, the low pole of the HEXACO honesty humility trait overlaps nearly perfectly with measures of dark personality, and can predict the presence of dark personality traits within the individuals, which can be confirmed with dark personality specific testing (Hodson et al., 2018). |
| Short sadistic impulse scale (SSIS) | The SSIS, developed by O'Meara et al. (2011) provides a strong psychometric measure of the core feature of sadistic personality, the desire to hurt others for pleasure. It is distinct among other psychometric measures in providing a measure of direct sadistic impulse, as opposed to indirect measures like that of vicarious sadism. |
| Varieties of sadistic tendencies (VAST) | The VAST offers a nuanced measure of sadistic personality, making a distinction between direct measures of sadistic behaviour, termed direct sadism, and indirect measures of sadism, termed vicarious sadism. Direct sadism constitutes the conventionally understood pleasure derived from physical or emotional harm of others, whereas vicarious sadism uniquely encompasses the enjoyment derived from watching others get harmed (Paulhaus and Jones, 2015). |
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Quiz A short quiz to test your new understandings of sadism as understood within personality psychology. Choose your answers and click "Submit":
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What motivates sadism and sadistic behaviours?[edit | edit source]
Psychological studies of the motivations for behaviour focus on intrinsic and emotional factors to understand what drives behaviour. Research into the intrinsic and emotional factors motivating sadistic behaviour centre around the conventionally understood sadistic motivation to harm for pleasure, boredom as a precedent and motivating factor for sadistic bullying and the desire to harm, and the desire for engagement, recognition and notoriety for psychologically violent trolling behaviours in the social media space. Each of these discrete motivations for sadistic behaviour are explored in detail below with explicit reference to relevant studies.
Pleasure[edit | edit source]
The core understanding of sadism as being motivated by the pleasure caused by harming others has been reconfirmed in numerous studies (Chester et al., 2019). However, in a study of 162 undergraduates across eight experimental conditions, Chester et al. (2019) found that the degree of pleasure experienced from sadistic behaviour was mediated by the perception that the targets of their behaviour had suffered, with greater perceived suffering leading to higher levels of pleasure, satisfaction and an increased likelihood of repeating sadistic behaviours. These findings uniquely underscore the degree to which the suffering of others motivates sadistic behaviour, in having measured for the subjective report in affect pre and post sadistic behaviour. Intriguingly, their research also showed that there is a waning temporal nature to the pleasure associated with inflicting harm, that this pleasure is short lived and gives way to increase in negative affect following a sadistic act. This finding may indicate the short-lived pleasure of sadistic behaviour as both a potential incentive and reinforcer, motivating repeat sadistic behaviour as means of emotional regulation towards positive affect.
Boredom[edit | edit source]
Research into school environments has helped identify boredom as a motivator for sadistic bullying behaviours, where a lack of stimulation and subsequent boredom both motivates and increases the likelihood that students will create their own fun by bullying each other. Pfattheichter et al. (2023) found that students levels of boredom had predictive validity in determining their likelihood to engage in a range of sadistic bullying behaviours, that of direct sadism in the form of causing physical and verbal harm to other students, and vicarious sadism in the form of enjoyment derived from watching videos where a student is verbally or physically harmed. The study emphasizes the myriad motivations for sadistic behaviour present in school environments, being that of pleasure from harming others, and the social reinforcement of approval or fear from other students, though importantly it specifically highlights that boredom increases the probability of these behaviours occurring owing to boredom and subsequent emotional regulation strategies in stimulation and sensation seeking. It follows from these findings that the development of the curriculum and school policies should take the issue of boredom into account, prioritizing and fostering student engagement and stimulation in prosocial ways both in the classroom and on the playground to diminish the motivation to sadistically bully others due to boredom.
Social dominance and self esteem[edit | edit source]
In a study of 99 tertiary students , Pfattheicher and Schindler (2015) studied the influence of existential threat on sadistic behaviour, by priming participants with questions on mortality to elicit the experience of existential threat prior to their engagement in a public goods game where they had the opportunity to engage in either altruistic punishment or sadistically motivated anti-social punishment of other participants. They found that individuals with sadistic traits engaged more readily and consistently in antisocial punishment and selfish behaviour across all conditions. Their findings reinforce that of other studies, showing again that the desire to dominate others profoundly motivates individuals with sadistic traits, but uniquely their research highlights the impact of the existential threat of contemplating mortality, and how it subsequently instigates an emotional regulation strategy to derive pleasure and self-esteem enhancement through sadistic behaviour to offset the negative affect induced by existential threat (Pfattheicher & Schindler, 2015).
Social isolation, trolling and online harassment[edit | edit source]
Whilst causing others pain is a well understood motivation for sadistic trolling and online harassment behaviours corroborated by many studies (Furian and March, 2023), research from Masui (2019) on the trolling behaviour of 513 individuals sought to understand how self-reported levels of loneliness would moderate individuals with dark tetrad traits in their trolling behaviours. Unsurprisingly the findings showed that all dark tetrad traits positively predicted trolling behaviour, though uniquely, loneliness was shown to significantly increase the frequency and consistency of trolling behaviours, serving as a strong motivator. The moderating effect of loneliness in increasing sadistic behaviour was attributed to a combination of the experience of social deprivation, and subsequent lack of support and psychosocial resources (Masui, 2019). Further to this, and in direct response to the experience of loneliness, trolling and harassment behaviours on social media could be understood as a maladaptive strategy for social engagement, and or a form of social revenge for perceived or actual social rejection or out-grouping.
Theory of motivation and sadism[edit | edit source]
The motivation theory of Self Determination Theory (SDT) focuses on the role intrinsic motivations, positing that there are three fundamental psychological needs that drive human behaviour and foster wellbeing, those needs being autonomy, competence and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 1985). To assist our understanding of sadism, sadistic motivations could be viewed through the lens of self-determination theory, if we consider maladaptive or pathological approaches to the aforementioned three needs. The below table expands on how the pursuit and fulfilment of the fundamental needs established in self-determination theory could be maladapted by a sadistic individual.
| SDT Psychological need | Sadistic maladaptive strategy |
|---|---|
| Autonomy: | Individuals with everyday sadist traits could satiate their desire for autonomy and control of their own life by being controlling in the lives of others, using the mechanisms of physical or psychological violence to assert and secure this control. |
| Competence: | Individuals with everyday sadist traits could fuel their need to feel competent by rendering others around them incompetent through bullying, harassment and intimidation to assert themselves and their perceived or actual competence. |
| Relatedness: | Individuals with everyday sadist traits within organisations with hostile and competitive structures (like high finance, law, politics or the military) could gratify their social needs for relation by appealing to an organisational culture, or leader that reinforces, rewards or gives approval for sadistic or unempathic behaviour. |
The application of the SDT for analysis of behavioural motivation in dark personality shows promise in the literature, with Xiao et al. (2021) exploring the role of relatedness need satisfaction and the dark triad, through an analysis of 5,207 undergraduate students by collecting self-report measures along a basic needs satisfaction scale in addition to a dark triad self-report scale. Their findings showed a bi-directional effect of relatedness needs satisfaction on dark triad traits, with relatedness needs dissatisfaction predicting maladaptive dark triad behaviours such as manipulation, deceit and cheating, and with relatedness needs satisfaction predicting and promoting pro-social behaviours such as cooperation and building interpersonal trust.
What can be done to mitigate sadistic behaviour?[edit | edit source]
Whilst much of the research presented and reviewed in previous sections primarily seeks to establish understanding of sadism and its definition, motivations and causes, below presented research goes further in providing recommendations and strategies for interventions to address and mitigate sadism.
Perspective taking and empathy[edit | edit source]
Research conducted by Lui et al. (2020) on 387 participants from the general public examined the mediating effect of perspective taking on sadists levels of pleasure after reading a story on the suffering of an imaginary other, with two conditions set in the experiment, one with the follow up perspective taking exercise, and one without. They found that when a follow up perspective taking exercise was implemented following reading the story of suffering, that sadists in this condition reported significantly lower levels of satisfaction as compared to the group of sadists who didn't perform the perspective taking exercise (Lui et al., 2020). This research shows promise in perspective taking as a therapeutic and organisational level intervention to reduce sadistic pleasure derived from causing harm, an effective means of promoting pro-social behaviours that flow on from perspective taking. This intervention could be implemented effectively within school contexts as part of anti-bullying and harassment activities and curriculum, particularly noting that addressing this behaviour in student populations during their formative years could reduce the prevalence of sadism and dark personality in the general population, and could reduce the probability of any subsequent dark tetrad related pathologies or difficulties experienced later in life at the individual level.
Design and moderation of social media spaces[edit | edit source]
Research by Craker & March (2016) extends the understanding of how social media platforms enable sadistic behaviours by providing a platform to psychologically harm others. Their research, covering a group of 396 adult age Facebook users showed a positive correlation between both trait psychopathy and trait sadism in predicting online harassment and cyber-bullying. These findings are consistent with other studies (Masui, 2019) however they uniquely offer recommendations about social media platforms actively identifying trolling behaviour, moderating it and providing education and awareness to users that experience online harassment about the motivations of their harassers, in an effort to reduce their engagement with them and to starve sub-clinical sadists and psychopaths of the pleasure they derive from causing harm. Further, in line with the responsibilities of social media site owners and operators, increased active word filtering, semantic analysis and discourse moderation should be enhanced and implemented to reduce the problem behaviour of sadistically motivated trolling and online harassment, social media sites should be obliged to take this action as a matter of their duty of care, and where they are unwilling to do so government should consider legislating their requirement to do so.
[edit | edit source]
Use of the SDT to perform research on, and to provide therapeutic interventions for individuals with sadism and broader dark tetrad traits shows promise, with particular reference to the aforementioned research of Xiao et al. (2021), and their findings on relatedness needs being a significant predictor on the presence or absence of dark personality traits, and the explanatory power this provides when understanding or treating maladaptive traits and promoting pro-social behaviours. This research is complementary to that of Lui et al. (2020) in that interventions such as perspective taking are pro-social and enhance relatedness satisfaction, and additionally with the research of Pfattheicher and Schindler (2023) where engagement could take the form of pro-social activities to combat boredom and reduce the probability of sadistically motivated behaviour. Addressing sadism through SDT, with particular reference to relatedness needs and subsequent pro-social interventions could increase mental health outcomes and reduce the prevalence of dark personality in individuals.
Conclusion[edit | edit source]
Sadism is primarily researched and understood through the framework of personality psychology, in particular through the trait perspective and the dark tetrad (Buckels et al., 2013). Sadistic behaviour is anti-social, aggressive and motivated by pleasure derived from the psychological and physical harm of, and need to dominate others (Chester et al., 2019). Dark personality theory and the dark tetrad are new paradigms, they are evolving and emergent theories within psychology on the bleeding edge of advancing our understanding the darker aspects of the human condition through reliable scientific methods and observations. Frameworks such as self-determination theory can be useful for assessing and understanding sadistic individuals motivations and maladaptive strategies for fulfilling essential psychological needs (Xiao et al., 2021). The psychological understanding of sadism both offers and informs approaches to address and mitigate sadism, in therapeutic contexts and within organizational or online spaces. Great thanks and gratitude are owed to Dr. Delroy Paulhaus, Dr. Kevin Williams and Dr. Erin Buckels for recovering the concept of sadism and dark personality from extreme definitions and cases associated with forensic and clinical settings, and creating a generalisable and robust measure that can be applied in sub-clinical contexts to address deviant and problematic behaviours prevalent in the general population.
See also[edit | edit source]
- Dark tetrad (Wikipedia)
- Dark tetrad and emotion (Book chapter, 2023)
- Dark tetrad and motivation (Book chapter, 2023)
- Definition and etymology of sadism (wiktionary.com)
- Sadism and emotion (Book chapter, 2023)
- Sadistic personality disorder (Wikipedia)
- Trait theory (Wikipedia)
References[edit | edit source]
Buckels, E. E., Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). Behavioral confirmation of everyday sadism. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2201–2209. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613490749
Chester, D. S., DeWall, C. N., & Enjaian, B. (2019). Sadism and aggressive behavior: Inflicting pain to feel pleasure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(8), 1252–1268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218816327
Craker, N., & March, E. (2016). The dark side of Facebook®: The dark tetrad, negative social potency, and trolling behaviours. Personality and Individual Differences, 102, 79–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.06.043
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2271-7
Furian, L., & March, E. (2023). Trolling, the dark tetrad, and the four-facet spectrum of narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 208, Article 112169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112169
Hodson, G., Book, A., Visser, B. A., Volk, A. A., Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2018). Is the dark triad common factor distinct from low honesty-humility? Journal of Research in Personality, 73, 123–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.11.012
Johnson, L. K., Plouffe, R. A., & Saklofske, D. H. (2019). Subclinical sadism and the dark triad: should there be a dark tetrad? Journal of Individual Differences, 40(3), 127–133. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000284
Lui, L. F., Sassenrath, C., & Pfattheicher, S. (2020). When is your pain my gain? The use of perspective taking by everyday sadists. Personality and Individual Differences, 167, Article 110213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110213
Masui, K. (2019). Loneliness moderates the relationship between Dark Tetrad personality traits and internet trolling. Personality and Individual Differences, 150, 109475. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.06.018.
O'Meara, A., Davies, J., & Hammond, S. (2011). The psychometric properties and utility of the short sadistic impulse scale (SSIS). Psychological Assessment, 23(2), 523–531. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022400
Paulhus, D. L., Buckels, E. E., Trapnell, P. D., & Jones, D. N. (2021). Screening for dark personalities: The short dark tetrad (SD4). European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 37(3), 208–222.
Paulhus, D., & Jones, D. (2015). Measures of dark personalities. In Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs (pp. 562-594). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386915-9.00020-6.
Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The dark triad of personality: Narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00505-6.
Pfattheicher, S., Lazarević, L. B., Nielsen, Y. A., Westgate, E. C., Krstić, K., & Schindler, S. (2023). I enjoy hurting my classmates: On the relation of boredom and sadism in schools. Journal of School Psychology, 96, 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2022.10.008.
Pfattheicher, & Schindler, S. (2015). Understanding the dark side of costly punishment: The impact of individual differences in everyday sadism and existential threat. European Journal of Personality, 29(4), 498–505. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2003
Xiao, W., Kong, X., Ao, X., Song, J., & Zhang, P. (2021). Relatedness need satisfaction and the dark triad: The role of depression and prevention focus. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 677906. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.677906
External links[edit | edit source]
- Sadistic personality disorder or just an everyday sadist? (psychologytoday.com)
- From psychopaths to ‘everyday sadists’: why do humans harm the harmless? (theconversation.com)
- Women, pornography and sadism - Dr. Del Paulhus - EP 327 (youtube.com)
- Researchers discover two psychological traits that connect narcissism to sadism (psypost.org)
- Short dark tetrad (SD4) (psytests.org)