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The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women
Abstract and Figures
It has been suggested that the Dark Triad (DT) personality constellation is an evolved facilitator of men's short-term mating strategies. However, previous studies have relied on self-report data to consider the sexual success of DT men. To explore the attractiveness of the DT personality to the other sex, 128 women rated created (male) characters designed to capture high DT facets of personality or a control personality. Physicality was held constant. Women rated the high DT character as significantly more attractive. Moreover, this greater attractiveness was not explained by correlated perceptions of Big 5 traits. These findings are considered in light of mating strategies, the evolutionary 'arms race' and individual differences.
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... For instance, in a large survey across 46 nations, Schmitt et al. (2008) found that high levels of extraversion and conscientiousness and low levels of agreeableness correlated positively with interest in short-term mating. Dark Triad traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) are also associated with a preference for uncommitted sex (Carter et al., 2014;Jonason et al., 2009)-their behavioural manifestations (e.g., a desire for power, being charming, egocentrism, and a lack of empathy) lending themselves to an exploitive short-term mating style. Finally, unsurprisingly, relationship status is negatively associated with short-term mating preference such that those who are pair-bonded show a reduced, but not always absent, interest in uncommitted sex (Buss & Schmitt, 1993;Penke & Asendorpf, 2008). ...
... As mentioned in the "Introduction" section, research has shown that high levels of extraversion and conscientiousness and low levels of agreeableness correlate positively with interest in short-term mating (Schmitt et al., 2008). Moreover, individual differences in the "Dark Triad" are associated with a stronger motivation to engage in shortterm mating (Carter et al., 2014;Jonason et al., 2009). Thus, previous research has shown that a wide range of individual differences play a pivotal role in enduring trait-like interest in short-term mating. ...
... In sum, consistent with previous research (Carter et al., 2014;Jonason et al., 2009), we found that higher scores on the Dark Triad were associated with an increased interested in short-term mating. Moreover, Experiment 3 revealed that only conscientiousness was associated with short-term mating motivation (see Schmitt et al., 2008). ...
Individual differences in men’s short-term mating interest are well studied, both at state and trait levels. Yet, the role of sexual arousal as a source of intra-individual variation has been neglected. This research represents the first attempt to integrate sexual arousal into the human mate plasticity literature. We argue that sexual arousal directly impacts the short-term mating motivation among men regardless of their personality, relationship status, and sociosexuality. Across four experiments, we found that heightened sexual arousal consistently increased men’s short-term mating motivation relative to participants in neutral and arousing control groups. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that sexual arousal increased participants’ general short-term mating motivation and their preference for a short-term relationship over a long-term one. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of the first two experiments whilst also demonstrating that this effect was not moderated by personality (i.e., Dark Triad, Big Five) or relationship status. Heightened sexual arousal also led to decreased “state” long-term mating motivation. Finally, Experiment 4 showed that sexual arousal increased the participants’ preference for a short-term relationship over a long-term one, an effect that was not moderated by sociosexuality. Together, the results suggest that sexual arousal has a powerful effect on men’s short-term mating motivation, and that this effect is independent of intrasexual differences in personality, relationship status, and sociosexuality.
... A growing body of research has indicated that interpersonal trust is pertinent to age and gender. Specifically, adults tend to have an increase in interpersonal trust as they get older [32,33], whereas children and adolescents tend to have a decline in interpersonal trust as they get older [34][35][36][37]. These results suggest that interpersonal trust might be an important developmental predictor, especially for youth. ...
... This result is in line with previous research [36], which suggests that children become more suspicious of others as they get older. One possibility is that adolescence and young adulthood are associated with risk-taking and impulsivity, so negative attitudes such as suspiciousness, mistrust, negativity, and cynicism might be most apparent at this age [34,35]; (2) as proposed by Tokuda et al. (2008) and Liang (2015), the lower their interpersonal trust, the more participants endorsed lower HRQoL [19,20]; (3) older adolescents reported greater distrust of others and lower levels of HRQoL. That is, interpersonal trust mediated the effects of age on HRQoL. ...
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an interesting topic in health care sciences and psychology. Deeper insight into the internal mechanism of this effect through large samples is crucial to further understanding HRQoL and making targeted suggestions to improve HRQoL. The present study aims to investigate the mediating role of interpersonal trust between age and HRQoL from a developmental lens. The purpose of this study was to profile the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 generic scale in China and test the relationship between age and health-related quality of life, as well as the mediating role of interpersonal trust and the moderating role of gender. A sample of 6248 children completed measures of demography, health-related quality of life, and interpersonal trust. Regression analyses were performed to test the mediating role of interpersonal trust and the moderating role of gender. Age was associated with lower health-related quality of life and lower interpersonal trust. Similarly, gender differences were also noted, with boys reporting higher health-related quality of life and lower interpersonal trust than girls. Additionally, the health-related quality of life of girls declined more than that of boys with increasing age. Regression analyses revealed that age could predict decreased health-related quality of life via lower levels of interpersonal trust. What is more, the mediation effect was moderated by gender, with the observed mediation effect being stronger among boys than girls. The current study replicates age and gender differences in health-related quality of life and interpersonal trust. Moreover, this study explained how and when age affected the health-related quality of life of children, and provided a deeper understanding of the relation between age and health-related quality of life.
... Other evidence suggests, however, that it is aggressiveness that precedes physical strength (330), meaning that physical aggression and formidability may actually have coevolved as part of a sexually selected complex (231). Narcissism, psychopathy, and dark traits overall also have shown small but positive correlations with height, bulk, and attractiveness (99,(331)(332)(333), which would suggest that they are facultatively calibrated to condition. Traits will show apparent heritability that must actually be attributed to condition. ...
Personality disorders (PDs) are currently considered dysfunctions. However, personality differences are older than humanity and are ubiquitous in nature, from insects to higher primates. This suggests that a number of evolutionary mechanisms—other than dysfunctions—may be able to maintain stable behavioral variation in the gene pool. First of all, apparently maladaptive traits may actually improve fitness by enabling better survival or successful mating or reproduction, as exemplified by neuroticism, psychopathy, and narcissism. Furthermore, some PDs may harm important biological goals while facilitating others, or may be globally beneficial or detrimental depending on environmental circumstances or body condition. Alternatively, certain traits may form part of life history strategies: Coordinated suites of morphological, physiological and behavioral characters that
optimize fitness through alternative routes and respond to selection as a whole. Still others may be vestigial adaptations that are no longer beneficial in present times. Finally, variation may be adaptative in and by itself, as it reduces competition for finite resources. These and other evolutionary mechanisms are reviewed and illustrated through human and non-human examples. Evolutionary theory is the best-substantiated explanatory framework across the life sciences, and may shed
light on the question of why harmful personalities exist at all.
... Thus, whether people are aware or not, the physical (un)attractive stereotype (beauty is good; ugliness is bad) perseveres, and unattractiveness has more potent effects on social cognition than attractiveness does. However, nonphysical traits may weigh more than appearances in long-term intimate bonds [10][11][12][13][14]. Both women and men, children, and adults consider personality traits more important than physical attractiveness in choosing a friend and partner [11,15]. ...
The current empirical evidence regarding the effects of personality on physical attractiveness is limited to adult faces. In two preregistered studies, we demonstrated that personality descriptions influenced perceived cuteness, warmth, competence of young children, and female adults' nurturing motivation toward them. Study 1 showed that participants rated children accompanied by positive personality descriptions as cuter, friendlier, and more intelligent than their initial ratings. Negative personality descriptions reduced perceived cuteness in children, which in turn reduced nurturing motivation. Study 2 showed that negative personality descriptions consistently reduced perceived cuteness and warmth ratings after manipulation, regardless of the initial level of perceived cuteness. After one week, cuteness and warmth ratings in the positive personality condition tended to return to their initial ratings. However, the effect of negative personality descriptions on cuteness ratings persisted for all children. Together, our findings suggest that female adults' perception of cuteness and nurturing motivation are induced not only by children's appearance but also their personality.
... Accumulation of multiple risks would construct environment with insufficient and unpredictable resources and motivate individuals to select fast life history strategy (Ellis et al., 2009;Furnham et al., 2013). These individuals produce more offspring, but invest less in each offspring, have preference for immediate satisfaction and short-term benefits (Carter et al., 2014;Ellis et al., 2009;Furnham et al., 2013;Rauthmann & Kolar, 2013), but reduce allotment of energy to development which may therefore be associated with lower ability to obtain resources, status, long-term mates (Wilson et al., 1996), and mental well-being (Martin et al., 2012). Evidences have shown that Dark Triad is the indicator of the fast life history strategy (Jonason et al., 2010;McDonald et al., 2012). ...
Personality is distal vulnerability of negative emotions and vital to mental health. Dark Triad was significantly correlated with negative emotions, whereas the mechanisms beneath the relationships were less clear. Based on life history strategy theory (LHS) and cognitive vulnerability-transactional stress model, the study explored the relationships between Dark Triad and negative emotions and investigated the roles of negative coping style and state boredom in the relationships aforementioned during the strict period of COVID-19 lockdown in China. 464 participants (Mage = 36.78 years; SD = 10.53) finished a package of measurements online including Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), Short Dark Triad (SD3), Multidimensional State Boredom Scale (MSBS), and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ). The results showed there were positive relationships between Dark Triad and depression, anxiety and stress. Moreover, the relationships between Dark Triad and negative emotions were sequentially mediated by negative coping style and state boredom. The present study offered fascinating perspectives in the relationships between Dark Triad and negative emotions, and revealed how Dark Triad affected depression, anxiety and stress during the initial phase of COVID-19 pandemic and strict lockdown among Chinese population. The present results may provide important implications for the prevention and intervention of depression, anxiety and stress during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. Specifically, the intervention strategies that focus on reducing Dark Triad, negative coping and boredom may help offset occurrence of negative emotional states.
... There may be a different effect for men and women, as a speed-date paradigm indicated that women scoring high on psychopathic traits were perceived as selfish, while men scoring high on psychopathic traits were found attractive (32). Likewise, in other studies, similar patterns for women who preferred a man with high levels of maladaptive (psychopathic) personality traits were found (33,34). Moreover, younger women in particular were found to be more attracted to dark personality traits than older women (35), which might be problematic given the peak of IPV in young adulthood (36,37). ...
Introduction
Why are women (not) romantically attracted to dark personalities or villains, which might be a risk factor for intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization? In the current study, it is opted to investigate how adult attachment, maladaptive personality traits, and acceptance of couple violence in women predict romantic attraction to heroic/villainous characters using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Method
First, a pilot study was conducted in 122 heterosexual women (aged 16–25) to select male TV characters. This resulted in the selection of six villains and 10 heroes for the main study, in which 194 other heterosexual women (aged 16–25) were asked to rate the pictures of TV characters through an online questionnaire. This was combined with self-report measures of maladaptive personality traits, acceptance of couple violence, and adult attachment. These variables were entered into a SEM model to assess model fit.
Results
Overall, women rated heroes higher on physical appearance (pilot study) and romantic attraction (main study) compared to villains. We found different direct effects of avoidant (negative) and anxious (positive) attachment styles on romantic attraction to heroes. Moreover, maladaptive personality traits fully mediated the positive effect of avoidant attachment style on romantic attraction to villains.
Discussion
Despite the limitations of the study design (e.g., low N , low notoriety of the TV characters), this study emphasizes that women are generally more romantically attracted to heroes (vs. villains). Besides, there are different predictors of romantic attraction to heroes and villains, which requires further investigation, especially in the context of IPV.
Gene transmission and hence fitness, for any animal, is a direct product of sex. Offspring production is the essential currency rewarded by natural selection, and this ‘reward’ is the principal mechanism that drives biological evolution. It is not surprising therefore that many human behaviours are associated with promoting sexual prolificacy and many popular modern cultural products draw attention to or symbolize features of success in human mating and reproduction. Examples include the music lyrics of the most successful recording artists (Hobbs and Gallup 2011) and the titles and plots of romance novels (Saad 2007; Cox and Fisher 2009). These (as with other cultures explored below and in later chapters) are conspicuous today because they are rooted in our biocultural evolution (Chap. 6)—i.e. our evolved psychologies, shaped by intrinsic motivations and needs that rewarded gene copying and transmission success in our ancestral past, modulated by our evolved cultures, shaped by social learning that rewarded copying and transmission success of complementing memes (Box 6.4).
Fundamentals of Cognitive Science draws on research from psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, linguistics, evolution, and neuroscience to provide an engaging and student-friendly introduction to this interdisciplinary field. While structured around traditional cognitive psychology topics, from attention, learning theory, and memory to information processing, thinking, and decision making, the book also looks at neural networks, cognitive neuroscience, embodied cognition, and magic to illustrate cognitive science principles. The book is organized around the history of thinking about the mind and its relation to the world. It considers the evolution of cognition and how it demonstrates how our current thinking about cognitive processes is derived from pre-scientific philosophies and common sense, through psychologists' empirical inquiries into mind and behavior as they pursued a science of cognition and the construction of artificial intelligences. The architectures of cognition are also applied throughout, and the book proposes a synthesis of them, from traditional symbol system architectures to recent work in embodied cognition and Bayesian predictive processing. Practical and policy implications are also considered but solutions are left for the readers to determine. Using extended case studies to address the most important themes, ideas, and findings, this book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology and related fields. It is also suitable for general readers interested in an accessible treatment of cognitive science and its practical implications.
Which personality traits are associated with physical attractiveness? Recent findings suggest that people high in some dark personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, can be physically attractive. But what makes them attractive? Studies have confounded the more enduring qualities that impact attractiveness (i.e., unadorned attractiveness) and the effects of easily manipulated qualities such as clothing (i.e., effective adornment). In this multimethod study, we disentangle these components of attractiveness, collect self-reports and peer reports of eight major personality traits, and reveal the personality profile of people who adorn themselves effectively. Consistent with findings that dark personalities actively create positive first impressions, we found that the composite of the Dark Triad—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—correlates with effective adornment. This effect was also evident for psychopathy measured alone. This study provides the first experimental evidence that dark personalities construct appearances that act as social lures—possibly facilitating their cunning social strategies.
Two studies examined narcissism and commitment in ongoing romantic relationships. In Study 1, narcissism was found to be negatively related to commitment. Mediational analyses further revealed that this was primarily a result of narcissists’ perception of alternatives to their current relationship. Study 2 replicated these findings with an additional measure of alternatives. Again, narcissists reported less commitment to their ongoing romantic relationship. This link was mediated by both perception of alternatives and attention to alternative dating partners. The utility of an interdependence approach to understanding the role of personality in romantic relationships is discussed.
If the Dark Triad are costly traits for individuals to have and individuals are predisposed to avoid interacting with selfish individuals, how do those who have those traits extract resources from their environment? We contend that a specific set of personality traits will enable individuals to do so. We showed that those who are disagreeable, extraverted, open, and have high self-esteem along with low levels of neuroticism and conscientiousness score high on the Dark Triad (Study 1: N = 216). Additionally, having a more individualistic and competitive approach to others and not a strongly altruistic orientation will also help those who are high on the Dark Triad (Study 2; N = 336). We contend that the Dark Triad may represent one social strategy that is characterized by an agentic social style.
The Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; Hare, 1980) and its revision (PCL-R; Hare, 1985a, in press) are clinical rating scales that provide researchers and clinicians with reliable and valid assessments of psychopathy. Their development was spurred largely by dissatisfactions with the ways in which other assessment procedures defined and measured psychopathy (Hare, 1980, 1985b).
Data were collected from two undergraduate student samples to examine (i) the relations of the ‘Dark Triad’ variables (Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism) with the HEXACO personality dimensions, as well as (ii) the ability of the aforementioned characteristics and of the Big Five personality factors to predict outcome variables related to sex, power, and money. Results indicated that the common variance of the Dark Triad was very highly correlated with low Honesty–Humility and that the unique variance of each of the Dark Triad variables also showed theoretically meaningful relations with the other five HEXACO factors. Furthermore, the Dark Triad and Honesty–Humility were strong predictors of three domains of outcome variables—Sex (short-term mating tendencies and sexual quid pro quos), Power (Social Dominance Orientation and desire for power), and Money (conspicuous consumption and materialism)—that were not well predicted by the dimensions of the Big Five. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Sexual selection processes have received much attention in recent years, attention reflected in interest in human mate preferences. Among these mate preferences are preferences for physical attractiveness. Preferences in and of themselves, however, do not fully explain the nature of the relationships that individuals attain. A tacit negotiation process underlies relationship formation and maintenance. The notion that preferences for physical attractiveness evolved under parasite-driven "good genes" sexual selection leads to predictions about the nature of trade-offs that individuals make between mates' physical attractiveness and investment potential. These predictions and relevant data are explored, with a primary emphasis on women's preferences for men's qualities. In addition, further implications of trade-offs are examined, most notably (a) the impact of environmental variations on the nature of mating and (b) some effects of trade-offs on infidelity and male attempts to control women.
Developmental instability (DI) reflects the inability of a developing organism to buffer its development against random perturbations, due either to frequent, large perturbations or to a poor buffering system. The primary measure used to assess DI experienced by an individual organism is fluctuating asymmetry (FA), asymmetry of bilateral features that are, on average in a population, symmetrical. A large literature on FA in humans in relation to measures of health and quality (close to 100 studies and nearly 300 individual effect size estimates) has accumulated. This paper presents the first quantitative meta-analysis of this literature. The mean effect size (scaled as Pearson r) was about 0.2. Effect sizes covaried negatively with sample size, consistent with effects of publication bias, the tendency for significant effects to be published. Conservative correction for this bias reduced the mean effect to about 0.1. Associations with FA underestimate effects of underlying DI due to imprecise measurement of the latter. A model-based best estimate of the mean effect of DI on outcomes is about 0.3, a theoretically meaningful, relatively large effect, albeit of moderate absolute size. The data are consistent, however, with a range of true effect sizes between 0.08 and 0.67, partly due to large study effects. Study-specific effect sizes in DI ranged between −0.2 and 1.0. A humbling and perhaps sobering conclusion is that, in spite of a large body of literature involving nearly 50 000 participants, we can only confidently state that there is on average a robust positive average effect size. An accurate estimate of that effect size was not possible, and between-study variation remained largely unexplained. We detected no robust variation across six broad categories of outcomes (health and disease, fetal outcomes, psychological maladaptation, reproduction, attractiveness and hormonal effects), though examination of narrower domains reveal some corrected effects close to 0.2 and others near zero. The meta-analysis suggests fruitful directions for future research and theory.