In order to find out the answer on how to recognize sadists, we have to know first who the sadists are. By every definition, sadists are the people who enjoy inflicting pain on others. But, having that said, I just realized that all of us are being sadistic from time to time. In school, bullies are referred as sadists and in any other place where you can find people mentally or physically hurting someone else just for their own pleasure. I have never been a bully in school, but looking back at some points I have really enjoyed making people smaller because of their previous actions. Does that make me a sadist?
Maybe. But maybe not. The Psychology by itself tries to avoid the question about the sadism since the experts still didn’t agree on whether the sadism was a disorder or not. While some would define sadism as the psychological disorder, there are claims of sadism being only the characteristic of a person. On the other hand, there is a thing called sexual sadism that is without any question qualified for the ’disorder’ label, since it’s defined as ’’recurrent and intense sexual arousal from the physical and psychological suffering of another person, as manifested by fantasies, urges, or behavior’’
On the other hand, there are masochists, who actually enjoy being hurt and it is usually linked to the sexual desire. That’s why the phrase sadomasochism appeared to define the disorder of person enjoying both giving and receiving the pain.
Now when we have all the terms referring to sadism determined, we can get back to our topic about how to recognize sadists. As there is no specific X-ray that can provide those pieces of information, and it would be completely absurd if we would put every person in the world under the brain scan, the experts had the thought of making a unique test that will provide basic information about the persons leaning towards sadism. The test is made out of 9 questions, all rated on the scale from one to five, or from completely disagree to completely agree. Those nine questions are composed as questions about everyday situations where the examinee would give the access to their thoughts and feelings only by checking one box in a row. The reliability of the test is proved by giving it to 202 students when the study was first devised.
If you are interested in taking a test or making someone else take it, we are delightful to inform you that we actually find the Sadism test: 9 questions that detect sadism.
