What Is Sadism — and When Is It a Disorder?

When you hear the word “sadist,” you probably think of serial killers and remorseless movie villains, or maybe a sexual sadist like the fictional Christian Grey of the Fifty Shades of Grey novels. And, you’d probably be correct. But psychologists say that thinking of sadism only in these extreme terms glosses over the many examples of sadistic tendencies we see and may even exhibit in everyday life.

Murdering someone in cold blood or torturing an animal are examples of extreme sadism. But the trait is also at the root of less extreme behavior, like leaving a negative review of a restaurant you don’t like and hoping it’ll hurt their business or smiling inside when you tell your work rival that you were promoted over them. And who hasn’t experienced schadenfreude — enjoying someone else’s misfortune? Celebrity gossip tabloids and the thousands of “epic fail” videos on the internet wouldn’t exist without it.

“People go to an extreme place when they think of sadism, like imagining a serial killer,” says David Chester, PhD, an associate professor of psychology who studies sadism at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. “That’s certainly sadism, but sadism is also anytime you feel a twinge of pleasure at the harm you’ve done.”

Named in the late nineteenth century for the Marquis de Sade, a French nobleman who wrote about (and engaged in) sexual cruelties, per Brittanica, sadism is defined by the American Psychological Association as getting pleasure from inflicting pain, humiliation, and suffering on others.

Although we may not like to acknowledge it, sadism is a trait that pretty much everyone exhibits to at least some degree. “Sadism is a characteristic pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that varies in the general population, much like extraversion, conscientiousness, and other familiar traits,” says Erin Buckels, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology who studies sadism at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada.

Sadism is one of many antagonistic personality traits, Dr. Chester says. It’s also part of what some psychologists refer to as the dark tetrad, as described by the Australian Psychological Society, which also includes psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. “But I find it kind of strange to look at just those four, because there are other antagonistic traits that belong in that family alongside sadism, like greed and vengeance,” he says. “There’s a pretty wide array of nasty traits.”

What distinguishes sadism from the others is both the pleasure that someone derives from hurting someone, and their motivation. In a series of two studies conducted by Dr. Buckels and her colleagues, the researchers set up an experiment that let participants believe they had the opportunity to harm an innocent victim. Many of the dark personality traits were associated with unprovoked aggression. But when participants had to complete an extra task before they were able to harm the victim, only people who scored high on a scale of sadistic tendencies were willing to work for the opportunity.

Because sadism exists on a spectrum, examples of the trait range from petty to downright criminal. Physical examples of sadism might include deriving pleasure from acts like killing someone, violently hurting someone, inflicting pain on someone in a sexual context without their consent, or hurting or killing an animal.

While violence and sadism aren’t the same thing, Chester says there’s a strong correlation between the two. “A lot of studies have tried to isolate the variables of why people are violent or aggressive, and sadism tends to win out,” he says. In 2019, Chester and his colleagues conducted a series of studies on sadism and performed a meta-analysis on the results. They found a correlation between sadism and aggression; namely, that those with higher scores for sadism (typically measured with a questionnaire) were more likely to also behave aggressively.

Sadism also manifests as psychological abuse, according to Delroy Paulhus, PhD, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who studies sadism and other dark personality traits (and who was a coauthor on Buckels’ study mentioned above). An example is online trolling, which researchers have defined as intentionally disruptive communication or debate conducted over the internet, rather than in real life. While it brings no physical harm to the victim, it can have painful mental and emotional consequences for them.

In a study conducted by Dr. Paulhus, Buckels, and colleagues, the researchers explored the relationship between sadism and online trolling. They found that a sadistic personality was strongly associated with online trolling, with participants who scored higher on a scale of sadistic traits more likely to both receive pleasure from online trolling and minimize the harm they inflicted on others in their own minds.

Vicarious sadism, Paulhus says, is a third type of sadism characterized by deriving pleasure from watching another person harm someone else, like in a particularly violent movie or a bar fight.

First of all, Chester says it’s probably not accurate to use the term “sadist” unless you’re talking about someone with very extreme sadistic tendencies, since sadism is a trait that most everyone has to varying degrees.

“The causes of sadistic tendencies are unclear, but it is likely a combination of genetic and environmental factors,” Buckels says.

“There’s a huge lack of research on who ends up exhibiting more sadism and who doesn’t,” Chester says. And although the lack of research makes it difficult to say for sure, Chester says someone’s sadistic tendencies probably fluctuate over time and depend on many other variables, like environment, relationships, and mental health status. “But we know that other antagonistic tendencies fluctuate throughout the lifespan, so it’s fair to say that sadistic tendencies do as well,” he says.

Sadism is not a recognized disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). According to research, it was proposed in the revised DSM-3 (published in 1987), but not included in any subsequent editions.

One place that sadism does show up in the DSM-5 is sexual sadism disorder, which involves taking pleasure from inflicting pain on another, nonconsenting person in a sexual context. It’s classified as a paraphilic disorder — a category of disorders that involve having sexual desires or engaging in sexual behaviors that are atypical and that upset you, or that involve another person’s nonconsent, distress, injury, or death. “To be diagnosed with this clinical disorder, the sexual interests must cause severe distress to oneself or others,” Buckels says.

When talking about sexual sadism disorder, it’s important not to include consensual sexual behaviors that involve some form of harm, like those engaged in by the BDSM community. “As long as these acts are enthusiastically consensual, there’s not necessarily a pathological aspect to them,” Chester says.

“There’s no research targeting how to lessen sadistic tendencies,” Chester says, which means there’s currently no evidence-based way to treat or manage sadism.

Different experts have different takes on whether or not it’s possible to manage or reduce sadistic tendencies within a person. “The joy in hurting others is unlikely to be treatable, but has serious consequences in civil societies,” Paulhus says.

Chester has a more optimistic view. “There are lots of really effective pharmacological and psychological treatments that target reward-based behaviors like addiction,” he says, reiterating that sadism is marked by the pleasure (a reward) that someone derives from inflicting harm. He gives the example of opioid antagonists, which, according to the Cleveland Clinic, help treat opioid addiction by blocking opioid receptors and preventing a person from feeling any pleasure from opioid drugs.

Because understanding sadism and learning how to manage it could help curb aggression and violence, Chester says that he hopes to see the research area grow in the near future.

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