Bad Boys, Dark Behaviour and Hidden Pleasures

Some people enjoy being liked, respected or admired. Others seem to find excitement in something quite different: making another person uncomfortable, provoking arguments, humiliating strangers or watching someone struggle emotionally.

They may laugh when someone gets embarrassed, deliberately start fights without a meaningful reason, use money or political influence to intimidate others, or hide behind anonymous online identities to harass people. In some cases, the reaction of the person being targeted appears to be the most rewarding part of the behaviour.

These behaviours are often casually described as being a bad boy, having an aggressive personality or simply enjoying trouble. However, behavioural psychology offers a deeper perspective. Concepts such as everyday sadism, Schadenfreude, dominance-seeking, impulsivity and online disinhibition help explain why certain individuals repeatedly engage in behaviour that causes distress to others.

Not every person who argues, shows off wealth or makes an insensitive joke enjoys causing pain. The more interesting psychological question is what happens when another person’s discomfort becomes a source of personal satisfaction.

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Pleasure in Other People’s Pain

Have you ever noticed someone laughing when another person gets embarrassed, humiliated or publicly criticised? Sometimes the reaction goes beyond ordinary amusement. The person appears genuinely pleased to see someone else suffer.

Psychology uses the German term Schadenfreude to describe pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune.

It can emerge when someone dislikes another person, feels jealous of them, considers their failure deserved or sees their misfortune as a personal or group victory.

For example, someone who feels inferior to a successful colleague might secretly enjoy watching that colleague fail. Similarly, supporters of competing social or political groups may experience satisfaction when members of the opposing group face public embarrassment.

Research by van Dijk and colleagues suggests that threats to personal self-worth can intensify Schadenfreude. Seeing another person experience a setback may temporarily make someone feel better about themselves.

However, there is another psychological pattern worth distinguishing: everyday sadism.

Everyday sadism refers to a tendency to derive enjoyment from cruelty or another person’s suffering. Unlike ordinary Schadenfreude, which can arise in response to an existing misfortune, sadistic tendencies involve a more direct appetite for causing or enjoying harm.

For some individuals, humiliating someone, deliberately upsetting them or witnessing their distress may become rewarding in itself. Research by Buckels, Jones and Paulhus (2013) demonstrated that everyday sadistic tendencies could predict willingness to engage in apparently cruel behaviour, including opportunities to harm an innocent person.

This distinction matters. Someone laughing at another person’s misfortune is not necessarily sadistic. But someone who repeatedly creates situations to make others suffer for personal enjoyment may display a more concerning behavioural pattern.

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Money, Power and the Pleasure of Showing Off

Why do some people constantly need to demonstrate how wealthy, influential or powerful they are?

Showing off expensive cars, luxury watches, money, influential connections or political relationships is not automatically a negative personality trait. People may display success for social recognition, personal expression or simple enjoyment.

The psychological concern begins when status becomes a tool for making other people feel inferior.

Some individuals use their financial position, professional connections or political influence to establish an unequal social relationship. They may remind others of their power, threaten consequences or behave as though ordinary social rules do not apply to them.

This behaviour can be connected to status-seeking and dominance motivation.

Psychologically, status and dominance are related but different concepts. Status can be earned through respect, competence and social contribution. Dominance, on the other hand, often involves obtaining deference through pressure, intimidation or control.

A person who constantly needs to prove superiority may be particularly sensitive to situations in which their authority is questioned.

In some cases, displaying power is less about communicating success and more about communicating a message: challenging me will have consequences.

The important distinction is between enjoying one’s achievements and using those achievements to intimidate others.

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The Pleasure of Dominance Through Intimidation

Some people do not necessarily need money, political connections or professional authority to feel powerful. Their preferred method is intimidation.

They may speak aggressively, invade personal space, threaten others, deliberately create uncomfortable situations or use physical size and aggression to control an interaction.

In behavioural psychology, dominance describes a way of establishing social hierarchy through control, coercion and, in some circumstances, aggression.

Zeng, Cheng and Henrich (2022) examined human dominance as a social process in which individuals obtain deference through control over costs and benefits, including threats and intimidation.

For certain individuals, making another person back down can create a sense of superiority. The satisfaction may come from seeing someone become silent, withdraw from an argument or avoid challenging them again.

This can become particularly visible in social groups where aggressive behaviour is mistaken for confidence or strength.

However, confidence and dominance are not the same thing. A confident person can disagree without threatening others. Someone who depends on intimidation may struggle to tolerate disagreement because they interpret it as a challenge to their authority.

Repeated intimidation can therefore become a way of maintaining a preferred social position rather than resolving any actual disagreement.

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Late-Night Street Fighting and the Thrill of Violence

Not every physical confrontation begins with a serious disagreement.

Sometimes an argument starts over a minor comment, an accidental collision, a road-related inconvenience or a perceived insult. Within minutes, the situation can turn into pushing, threats or physical violence.

Late-night street confrontations can be particularly concerning when alcohol, group pressure, impulsivity or heightened emotions are involved.

Some individuals appear to actively seek confrontations. They may interpret ordinary interactions as challenges, provoke strangers or become aggressive simply because someone refuses to respond in the way they expect.

Several psychological factors may contribute to this pattern:

• Impulsivity: Acting on immediate emotions without adequately considering consequences.
• Thrill-seeking: Pursuing intense experiences and excitement, sometimes through risky behaviour.
• Hostile attribution: Interpreting ambiguous actions as deliberate disrespect or hostility.
• Social reinforcement: Receiving approval, attention or admiration from friends after aggressive behaviour.

For some people, the confrontation itself may provide stimulation. For others, the motivation may be revenge, peer approval or a desire to establish dominance.

It is important not to assume that every street fight involves sadistic pleasure. Anger, fear, intoxication and impulsive reactions can also lead to violence.

Nevertheless, repeatedly provoking physical confrontations without a meaningful reason can indicate a troubling relationship with aggression and conflict.

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The Pleasure of Anonymous Trolling and Cyberbullying

The internet has created a different environment for people who enjoy provoking others.

A person who might remain quiet in a face-to-face conversation can become extremely aggressive behind an anonymous account. They may post insulting comments, target someone’s appearance, spread humiliating content, deliberately provoke arguments or repeatedly attack individuals online.

Political discussions provide a particularly visible environment for this behaviour.

Across Indian and American political discussions, comment sections involving prominent leaders, political parties and their supporters can contain intense personal attacks, harassment and deliberate provocation. Discussions involving Narendra Modi, Donald Trump and their respective political communities illustrate how political disagreement can sometimes turn into personal hostility.

However, criticism, disagreement and satire are not automatically cyberbullying. The distinction becomes important when behaviour involves targeted harassment, repeated humiliation, threats or deliberate attempts to distress another person.

One psychological concept that helps explain this behaviour is the Online Disinhibition Effect, introduced by psychologist John Suler (2004).

Suler identified several features of online environments that can influence how people behave, including anonymity, invisibility, delayed communication and reduced feelings of authority or accountability.

When people believe their real identities are hidden, they may feel less restrained by the social consequences that would normally influence their behaviour.

But anonymity alone does not explain every troll.

Research by Buckels, Trapnell and Paulhus (2014), titled Trolls Just Want to Have Fun, found associations between internet trolling and several darker personality traits, particularly everyday sadism.

Another study by Buckels and colleagues (2019) examined the relationship between internet trolling and everyday sadism. Their findings suggested that some trolling behaviour is associated with pleasure in others’ suffering and the tendency to minimise the harm caused.

This introduces an uncomfortable possibility: for certain individuals, provoking another person is not simply an expression of anger or disagreement. It can be a form of entertainment.

They may enjoy watching someone become frustrated, repeatedly defending themselves or emotionally reacting to deliberately insulting comments.

In politically charged environments, group identity can further reinforce this behaviour. People may receive approval from others who share their political views, making aggressive comments feel socially rewarding.

For such individuals, the combination of anonymity, group approval and another person’s visible distress can make online harassment particularly reinforcing.

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Hacking for Harassment and the Pleasure of Control

Not every person who misuses technology is interested in financial gain.

Some individuals may attempt to access another person’s account, disrupt their digital activities, expose private information or interfere with online communication simply to intimidate or harass them.

In these situations, the objective may be control, revenge, humiliation or the satisfaction of demonstrating technical power.

This behaviour needs to be distinguished from legitimate cybersecurity research and ethical hacking, where access and testing are authorised.

The psychological motivations behind non-financial digital harassment can vary:

• Control: Making another person feel that their privacy or digital space is no longer secure.
• Revenge: Targeting someone because of a personal disagreement or perceived insult.
• Intimidation: Demonstrating that one can interfere with another person’s online activities.
• Recognition: Seeking attention or admiration from peers by demonstrating technical abilities.
• Malicious curiosity: Exploring how much disruption can be caused without considering the consequences.

In some cases, the satisfaction may come from the victim’s reaction rather than any financial or practical benefit.

However, there is an important research limitation here. Not all unauthorised hacking is motivated by harassment, and there is less direct psychological research on non-financial hacking specifically than there is on online trolling and cyberaggression.

Therefore, it would be inaccurate to assume that every hacker who causes disruption enjoys another person’s suffering.

The behaviour becomes particularly concerning when technical knowledge is deliberately used to threaten, frighten or repeatedly distress someone.

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The Pleasure of Provoking Strangers in Public

Some confrontations appear to have no meaningful objective.

A person may deliberately stare at someone, make unnecessary comments, interrupt strangers, invade personal space or repeatedly provoke another person in a public setting.

This can happen in metro trains, public buses, crowded streets, queues and other everyday environments.

The target may initially ignore the behaviour, but the person continues until an argument develops.

Why would someone deliberately create a conflict that offers no obvious benefit?

One possible explanation is reaction-seeking behaviour.

For certain individuals, another person’s reaction becomes the reward. They may enjoy seeing someone become angry, embarrassed, confused or uncomfortable.

Other motivations may include boredom, impulsivity, a desire for attention or an attempt to establish dominance in a public setting.

The behaviour can resemble online trolling, except that the interaction happens face-to-face.

An online troll may repeatedly post provocative comments to trigger emotional reactions. A person who deliberately provokes strangers in public may pursue a similar outcome through direct confrontation.

However, not every uncomfortable public interaction is intentional provocation. Misunderstandings, cultural differences, stress and poor communication can also create conflict.

The recurring pattern is what matters: deliberately creating unnecessary tension, ignoring another person’s discomfort and continuing because their reaction provides some form of satisfaction.

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The Psychology Behind Dark Pleasure

These behaviours may look different on the surface, but several psychological mechanisms can overlap.

Schadenfreude involves pleasure at another person’s misfortune. Everyday sadism involves enjoyment of cruelty or suffering. Dominance-seeking involves obtaining deference through control or intimidation. Online disinhibition can reduce the restraints that normally influence behaviour in face-to-face situations.

They are not interchangeable concepts, and no single explanation accounts for every aggressive or antisocial action.

Another important factor is reinforcement.

When a person receives attention, admiration, excitement or satisfaction after provoking someone, the behaviour may become more likely to happen again. This does not mean dopamine is a simple pleasure chemical or that every aggressive act produces the same neurological response. Reward learning involves several interacting brain processes.

Over time, repeated behaviour can become a recognisable interpersonal pattern.

The most concerning feature is not simply that someone occasionally behaves badly. It is the repeated willingness to create distress, disregard another person’s boundaries and treat their suffering as an acceptable source of personal enjoyment.

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Bad behaviour is not always driven by anger, frustration or a desire for revenge. Sometimes, the motivation is attention. Sometimes it is dominance. And sometimes, another person’s discomfort is itself part of the reward.

This is what makes everyday cruelty particularly difficult to understand. The person causing distress may see the interaction as entertainment, a demonstration of power or an opportunity to feel superior, while the person experiencing it may be left with fear, humiliation or emotional exhaustion.

Not everyone who argues, trolls, fights or displays aggression has sadistic tendencies. Psychological labels should never be assigned solely on the basis of isolated incidents.

But when someone repeatedly seeks opportunities to provoke, intimidate or hurt others and appears to enjoy the resulting distress, the behaviour deserves closer attention.

Understanding these patterns is not about glorifying bad behaviour or labelling people as monsters. It is about recognising the psychological mechanisms that can turn cruelty into a source of satisfaction.

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References

1. 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
2. Buckels, E. E., Trapnell, P. D., & Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Trolls Just Want to Have Fun. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 97–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.01.016
3. Buckels, E. E., Trapnell, P. D., Andjelovic, T., & Paulhus, D. L. (2019). Internet Trolling and Everyday Sadism: Parallel Effects on Pain Perception and Moral Judgment. Journal of Personality, 87(2), 328–340. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12393
4. Körner, R., Overbeck, J. R., & Schütz, A. (2025). Structuring Hierarchy Concepts: Evaluating Measures of Power, Status, Dominance, and Prestige on the Basis of an Integrative Model and Systematic Literature Review. Psychological Bulletin, 151(3), 322–364. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000470
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6. Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321–326. https://doi.org/10.1089/1094931041291295
7. van Dijk, W. W., Ouwerkerk, J. W., Wesseling, Y. M., & van Koningsbruggen, G. M. (2011). Towards Understanding Pleasure at the Misfortunes of Others: The Impact of Self-Evaluation Threat on Schadenfreude. Cognition and Emotion, 25(2), 360–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2010.487365
8. van Dijk, W. W., Ouwerkerk, J. W., Smith, R. H., & Cikara, M. (2015). The Role of Self-Evaluation and Envy in Schadenfreude. European Review of Social Psychology, 26(1), 247–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2015.1111600
9. Zeng, T. C., Cheng, J. T., & Henrich, J. (2022). Dominance in Humans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1845), 20200451. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0451