The psychologist at the center of a scandal over the misuse of millions of Facebook users' personal data worked with Russian researchers on a study of pathological personality traits.
Aleksandr Kogan advised a team at St. Petersburg State University that was exploring whether psychopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism — dubbed the "dark triad" by psychologists — were linked to abusive online behavior, said Yanina Ledovaya, senior lecturer at the university's department of psychology.
"We wanted to detect (internet) trolls in order to improve in some way the lives of people suffering from trolling," Ledovaya told Reuters.