Non-Standard Internet Trolls of the Early 21st Century – Internet Trolls of the Business World: Part I – General Features and Modus Operandi.

Standard Internet trolls of the early 21st century  had more in common with other types of early 21st century manipulators and tended to operate alone; while the underlying objectives and psychological roots of their trolling were relatively easy to grasp. By way of contrast, none of these things could be said about the non-standard Internet...

Offline Versions of Standard Internet Trolls

In contrast to standard Internet trolls, their offline counterparts always troll others in-person. Consequently, distinguishing between public and private methods, through which offline trolls communicate potentially distressing misinformation to others, would not be very meaningful.   Offline Versions of Standard, Less Skilled Internet Trolls Nonsense and Offense Nature of these techniques: In parallel with their...

Standard Internet Trolls of the Early 21st Century: Part I – General Features, Modus Operandi, and Social Consequences

General Introduction All psychological manipulators, which existed in Western societies of the early 21st century, can be situated on a continuum. Those who are least skilled in manipulating others, and cause the least harm, will be situated on one end of this continuum. While those who are most skilled and cause the most harm, will...

Shortcomings of Interpretations of Academic Texts

Analysis and criticism of art and literature has stopped limiting itself to biographical criticism[i] and embraced many additional, alternatives approaches[ii] since at least the early 20th century; with the result being a far richer and deeper understanding of art and literature than could be provided by biographical criticism alone. Embarrassingly enough, all other intellectual/scholarly pursuits,...

Psychosocial Roots of Supernatural and Analogous Beliefs

1A: Supernatural and Other Beliefs, Aimed at Improving One’s Life (and Afterlife), which Presuppose that People Have Free Will Traditional Examples: All religious beliefs which involve obtaining the blessing/avoiding the curse of various deities and spirits. All folk beliefs about avoiding/resisting various seemingly natural monsters (e.g. that dwell in the forests or various bodies of...

Life Experiences, Psychological Traits, and Academic Studies, which Increase Religious Toleration among Atheists

Living among religious people and/or in a religious community/country. This habituates an atheist to hearing/reading/seeing religious claims; leading to a lower negative emotional reaction to them. Higher intelligence (which increases dramatically in response to academic study of any fields). Higher intelligence (especially that stemming from extensive academic studies) likely leads to a higher regard for...

The Question of Validity in Social Sciences Research

Studies of human behaviors, feelings, thoughts, dispositions, etc., utilizing various research methods, especially those utilizing direct, overt extraction of information (e.g., questionnaires, interviews, focus groups), seem to frequently lead to information about cultural ‘ideals’ (i.e. those behaviors, feelings, thoughts, dispositions, etc., which are seen as right/proper in the respondents’ culture); rather than ‘real’ behaviors, feelings,...

Conflict, Failure to Cooperate, and Dereliction of Duty among Humans: Causes and Consequences

I Human conflict is ubiquitous. It is often covert and exists in every type of human social interaction, ranging from that between happy lovers, to all types of leaders and their followers, to that between politicians, bureaucrats and the rest of society, to that between states, alliances of states, and large sections of humanity bound...

Human Subjectivity and its Psychosocial Roots

All people appear to share a number of universal personality traits (e.g. lust for life, desire for mental peace, fear of the unknown, fear of believing falsehoods, etc.), which, if indeed universal, may stem from one or combination of the following factors: certain aspects of universal human life experiences (esp. in childhood), certain aspects of...

Gender, Species and Body Integrity Identities, in Light of Human Cognition, Evolution and Societal Pressures

Cognitive Perspective Gender and Species Identities All non-human animals easily distinguish between members of the two sexes, as well as their and other species, through behavioral, odor, auditory and visual differences. However, there is no reason to believe that any non-human animals possess any abilities for advanced abstract thought, such as self-awareness or ability to...