I worry that I’m getting intolerant as I get older. I no longer want the fictional hero to slap the bad guy in irons and see him sent to prison after a fair trial. Nope, I want John Wick-style justice. I tut-tut when I see a smashed window or bus shelter and muse, “What’s up with the youth of today?” No empathising from me.
And when I’m supposed to be at a Wellington courthouse but it’s been evacuated because of a bomb threat, I shake my head and hope the police get the grotty miscreant responsible and throw the figurative book at them.
Why do people engage in these “mind-less” pranks and misbehaviour? I put “mindless” in scare quotes because I know behaviour is never mindless. It’s just that I find it hard to put myself in the shoes of someone who thinks it’s a good idea to vandalise a bus shelter.
So, what is the psychology behind this stuff? Pranks, hoaxes (including online) and vandalism don’t necessarily happen in a social vacuum. By this, I mean that a lot of the time, there’s the prankster and there’s the audience. Maybe they’re mates and pranks are a shared social interaction, perhaps with humour. Pranks can strengthen the bond within a group, either by targeting someone outside the group or even through ribbing someone within the group. Who is allowed to prank signifies who has the power within a group.
Pranks can also allow the release of tension – blowing off steam. Of course, there are a lot of adaptive ways we can blow off steam that don’t involve causing streets to be cordoned off while the bomb squad poke around, or cost taxpayer dollars to fix. Impulsive naughtiness can also signify an underlying regulatory deficit: the inability to not act out.
Although I find it difficult to take the perspective of someone who pulls a hoax, lack of empathy and perspective-taking is also a factor in the commission of a hoax. You don’t put a bag of poo on the neighbour’s doorstep if you’re thinking about what it will be like for them to find it (unless you really hate them). I imagine ringing the doorbell and running away is also less common nowadays – the internet, and even the telephone, give an easier semblance of anonymity that also makes it easier to offend against someone else without having to see the effect of one’s actions.
In terms of personality-like factors, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that destructive hoaxing and vandalism are more likely to be associated with the old “dark triad” of psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism. People who embody these trait clusters also tend to be less likely to take the perspectives of others, and people who exhibit psychopathic traits are notably less likely to give a stuff about social norms and conventions.
It’s also a short hop and a skip to imagining what our vandal or bomb hoaxer looks like, right? Research shows males are more likely to make bomb threats and vandalise stuff, and that’s partly because they’re more likely to exhibit dark-triad traits. Psychopathy is thought to be up to four times more common among men.
Of course, bomb threats in particular may be instrumental: they’re intended to do something. Maybe to delay a trial or just mess with the lives of people who are part of the justice system. Dark-triad types are also more likely to use the internet for online deception, ranging from scamming folks for money or catfishing to more “innocuous” stuff such as trolling.
I’ve used the word “prank” a lot here, but I need to acknowledge a lot of the examples I’ve given aren’t playful and can be downright dangerous. To steal a line attributed to Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a joke is never just a joke.
