Cruelty in the Everyday: A Literature Review of Everyday Sadism
Ward, Rebecca (2025) Cruelty in the Everyday: A Literature Review of Everyday Sadism. Deviant Behavior. (In Press)
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Abstract
This systematic review explores everyday sadism, a subclinical form of cruelty expressed through socially acceptable behaviours such as trolling, workplace bullying, and schadenfreude. Distinct from criminal and consensual sexual sadism, it is examined within the Dark Tetrad framework, complementing narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Synthesising over 85 studies using PRISMA guidelines, the review evaluates evolutionary, cognitive-behavioural, and reinforcement models, psychometric measures, and experimental paradigms. Findings highlight its prevalence across relationships, workplaces, and online spaces, and outline ethical challenges, interventions, and directions for cross-cultural and longitudinal research.
| Item ID: | 88801 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1521-0456 |
| Copyright Information: | © 2025 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Jul 2026 00:25 |
| FoR Codes: | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5203 Clinical and health psychology > 520302 Clinical psychology @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280121 Expanding knowledge in psychology @ 100% |
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