Harmful fun: Pranks and sadistic motivation

Two studies tested whether pranking is a context for observing sadistic motivation, understood as a compensatory/restorative response to insults to the self that manifests as displaced aggression. A disrespect sensitivity/anger rumination (DSAR) index outperformed a measure of dispositional sadism in predicting sadistic thoughts and emotions congruent with sadistic motivation across the span of a recalled prank (Study 1). DSAR also predicted greater sadistic affect/motivation and greater self-elevation/victim derogation among prank viewers when the prospect of significant long-term harm befalling prank victims was salient, but not when harm was minimized (Study 2). Fueled by displaced hostility, enjoyment of others’ experienced harm in pranking contexts indeed appears sadistic.

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Notes

In preliminary analyses, gender did not alter the pattern of reported results in either study whether considered as a covariate or as a moderator, so it will not be discussed. Study 1 participants completed two other measures that were not of central importance to the present research: (1) Jonason and Webster’s (2010) 12-item “Dirty Dozen” scale, which assesses individual differences in psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism; and (2) Gross and John’s (2003) 10-item Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), which includes subscales measuring individual differences in reliance on two distinct emotion regulation strategies: cognitive reappraisal (changing how one feels by changing one’s thinking) and expressive suppression (restricting overt displays of emotion). Consistent with previous research (e.g., Buckels et al. 2013), dispositional sadism was moderately positively correlated with all three Dark Triad components (rs = 0.35–0.44). Correlations between DSAR and the Dark Triad were somewhat higher (rs = 0.51–0.56). Expressive suppression was significantly positively correlated with both DSAR, r (130) = 0.25, p = .004, and dispositional sadism, r (130) = 0.17, p = .047. In contrast, cognitive reappraisal was negatively correlated with DSAR (due wholly to the anger rumination component), r (130) = − 0.19, p = .032, and not significantly correlated with dispositional sadism, r (130) = − 0.07, p = .409. Thus, both DSAR and dispositional sadism were linked to an emotion regulation style that is arguably congruent with voluntary inhibition of overt negative reactions to an experience of insult. Speculatively, because ES tends to be rather ineffective at reducing the underlying arousal associated with such aversive experiences (see Gross 2014), this may contribute to the amplification of (displaced) sadistic motivation.

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