Women’s Attraction to Men with Darker Personality TRAITS

Although most people don't regard narcissism or psychopathy to be desirable attributes in friends, many of us are drawn to individuals who have these personality traits.

What is it about men with antisocial personality disorders with the lack of fear and dominance that draws women to them?

According to new research, those with "dark" personality qualities are physically more beautiful than others.

There can be various factors that cause women to get attracted to men with darker personality traits. This article, however, talks only about three.

1. Biological need to find a stronger mate,
2. Attraction to people with similar personality traits,
3. Developmental trauma caused by childhood neglect.

Psychologists from the University of Liverpool, in collaboration with their colleagues in Poland and Finland, recently conducted a study wherein they found that it is not the love of danger that attracts women to "Wuthering Heights" Heathclifflike characters, as previously believed. Instead, it is a primitive desire to find a mate who appears mentally strong, confident and physically attractive to have healthier children.

According to the journal 'Evolution and Human Behaviour' these men display sharper features and portray the characteristics of a "Dark Triad" personality, i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.

A total of 2,370 adult female volunteers were shown two sets of computer-simulated men's faces, one of which had more or less Dark Triad traits than the other. Women were asked which of the two drew them the most. The results showed that most women were attracted to men with features associated with the "Dark Triad" personality. These women, in turn, have a higher chance of reproducing, further confirming the biological aspect of the attractiveness of men with darker personality traits, according to 'The Daily Telegraph'.

Another study on the topic 'The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women' was conducted in 2013 by renowned psychologists Gregory Louis Carter, Anne C. Campbell, and Steven Muncer at the University of Durham and University of Teesside, United Kingdom. The study aimed to explore the attractiveness of the DT (Dark Triad) personality to the other sex 128 women rated created (male) characters designed to capture high DT facets of personality or a controlling personality. The results suggested that women rated the high DT character as significantly more attractive.

Exploring other areas of this topic, a study conducted by Vlad Burtaverde at the University of Bucharest, Romania, suggested that "Women high on the Dark Triad traits are more attracted to narcissistic males if they are oriented to long term mating and had fewer experiences with unfaithful men." During the study, they investigated if women high on the Dark Triad Traits are attracted to males with high levels of narcissism and tested the moderation effect of women's mating orientation and experience with unfaithful men.

Through the study, it was shown that:

1. Women who ranked high on the 'Dark Triad' qualities were drawn to men who scored high on narcissism.
2. Women who were oriented to longterm mating and had high degrees of Machiavellianism, narcissism, or psychopathy were more attracted to narcissistic males.
3. Women with high degrees of psychopathy and history of unfaithful men were less attracted to men with high levels of narcissism.

As a result, the study endorses the hypothesis of positive assortative mating for women with high Dark Triad features, but only if they had had prior infidelity experience displaying that these women are attracted to similarities between themselves and their mate.

Digging further, a study was conducted by professors Xuji Jia, Quingjin Wang, and Lin Lin at the Tianjin Normal University, China in the year 2020, on the topic 'The Relationship Between Childhood Neglect and Malevolent Creativity: The Mediating Effect of the Dark Triad Personality."

It aimed to explore the "the environmental and individual predictors of malevolent creativity", i.e., the association between childhood neglect, Dark Triad personality traits, and malicious creativity, as well as the function of the personality traits as a mediating factor

The study discovered, those who have a significant amount of DT personality characteristics, also have a significant amount of malevolent inventiveness.

While this study holds no significant value in this particular article when it stands alone, it does explain the attraction correlation between childhood trauma, neglect and attraction to men with 'Dark Triad' personalities.

If we connect the studies conducted at the University of Bucharest and Tianjin Normal University, it is safe to say that childhood trauma can also be related to attractiveness to men with darker personality traits such as narcissism, psychopathy, etc.