“Our view of sadism is that enjoyment of cruelty occurs in various degrees in normal, everyday people. It is not just criminals who feel sadistic pleasure, so the fact that trolls are rather sadistic was not surprising,” said Buckels via email.

“In general, our results suggest that online trolls are also cruel to others in real life,” Buckels explained.

“At the same time, the anonymity provided by the Internet may allow sadists to express their cruelty more easily online. So, at the very least, they want to be cruel to others in real life, but they may find it harder to do so.”