What gives rise to sadism? While sadistic behavior (i.e., harming others for pleasure) is well-documented, past empirical research is nearly silent regarding the psychological factors behind it. We help close this gap by suggesting that boredom plays a crucial role in the emergence of sadistic tendencies. Across 9 diverse studies, we provide correlational and experimental evidence for a link between boredom and sadism. We demonstrate that sadistic tendencies are more pronounced among people who report chronic proneness to boredom in everyday life (Studies 1A-1F, N = 1,780). We then document that this relationship generalizes across a variety of important societal contexts, including online trolling; sadism in the military; sadistic behavior among parents; and sadistic fantasies (Studies 2-5, N = 1,740). Finally, we manipulate boredom experimentally and show that inducing boredom increases sadistic behavior (i.e., killing worms; destroying other participants' pay; Studies 6-9, N = 4,097). However, alternatives matter: When several behavioral alternatives are available, boredom only motivates sadistic behavior among individuals with high dispositional sadism (Study 7). Conversely, when there is no alternative, boredom increases sadistic behavior across the board, even among individuals low in dispositional sadism (Studies 8 and 9). We further show that excitement and novelty seeking mediate the effects of boredom, and that boredom not only promotes sadistic (proactive) aggression, but reactive aggression as well (Study 9). Overall, the present work contributes to a better understanding of sadism and highlights the destructive potential of boredom. We discuss implications for basic research on sadism and boredom, as well as applied implications for society at large. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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关于无聊和虐待狂侵略的关系。

是什么导致了虐待狂？虽然虐待狂行为（即为了享乐而伤害他人）有据可查，但过去的实证研究对其背后的心理因素几乎保持沉默。我们通过暗示无聊在虐待狂倾向的出现中起着至关重要的作用来帮助缩小这一差距。在 9 项不同的研究中，我们为无聊和虐待狂之间的联系提供了相关性和实验证据。我们证明，在报告日常生活中长期感到无聊的人中，施虐倾向更为明显（研究 1A-1F，N = 1,780）。然后我们记录了这种关系在各种重要的社会环境中推广，包括在线拖钓；军队中的虐待狂；父母之间的虐待行为；和虐待狂幻想（研究 2-5，N = 1.740）。最后，我们通过实验操纵无聊，并表明引起无聊会增加虐待行为（即杀死蠕虫；破坏其他参与者的工资；研究 6-9，N = 4,097）。然而，替代方案很重要：当有多种行为替代方案可用时，无聊只会激发具有高倾向性虐待狂的个体的虐待行为（研究 7）。相反，当别无选择时，无聊会全面增加虐待行为，即使在性虐待倾向低的个体中也是如此（研究 8 和 9）。我们进一步表明，寻求刺激和新奇事物会调节无聊的影响，而且无聊不仅会促进施虐（主动）攻击，还会促进反应攻击（研究 9）。总的来说，目前的工作有助于更好地理解虐待狂，并突出了无聊的破坏性潜力。我们讨论对虐待狂和无聊的基础研究的影响，以及对整个社会的应用影响。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2020 APA，保留所有权利）。