We’ve published over a dozen posts about the Dark Triad since we first started researching its potential links to attraction. We want to answer this question: What, if anything, enables Dark Triad males to sleep with more women, more often, with less romantic commitment? It could be that:
Dark Triad males may employ unique social strategies that effectively enlarge their pool of potential successes.
Dark Triad males may possess personality traits that are intrinsically attractive and/or behaviorally replicable.
Dark Triad males may appear more physically attractive than the average male.
If Dark Triad males really do in fact have greater sexual and/or romantic success with women, then it probably isn’t a result of just one of the above; all three are important. So far, though, we haven’t been able to determine which of them is the most important. We’ve seen evidence for behavioral strategies (i.e., identifying and mimicking Dark Triad behaviors), social strategies (i.e., increasing the number of potential sex partners by lowering standards, approaching frequently, hitting on women most men would not, etc.), and physical strategies (i.e., improving one’s appearance and raw physical sex appeal.) But we haven’t yet seen a really solid study that addresses the latter two possibilities.
Until now.
Are Narcissists Sexy?
Scholarly reseach is a progressive enterprise, which means its okay to rip off your peers. Its actually encouraged (as long as you cite your sources, of course). When your peers publish a study that’s relevant to your area of interest, you can then take their findings and use them to design your own study. Later, some other researcher will do the same with your findings. Generations of researchers have been building on each other’s work like this, and, as a result, newer is usually better. So when we came across a study examining the short-term attractiveness of narcissism published only two months ago, we jumped on it, just because it was relevant and brand new.
Once we read it, we realized it was a gold-mine.
Michael Dufner, John F. Rauthmann, Anna Z. Czarna, and Jaap J. A. Denissen conducted three experiments using college students in Germany and Poland. The researchers hypothesized that two traits make narcissists initially attractive at zero-acquaintance: physical attractiveness and social boldness.
Study 1: 117 psych undergrads (58 male, 59 female) participated. The students were assigned to one of three conditions in which they were given a fake narcissism questionnaire. They were told that the questionnaire was filled out by a member of the opposite sex, and the scores on the questionnaires were low, medium, or high (depending on the condition). After they examined the fake questionnaires, the students were asked to rate the friend appeal and mate appeal of the imaginary person.
*Note: These fake questionnaires used the NPI, validated Polish version. The difference between this and the NPI that we discussed earlier is that the Polish version contains 34 items based on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = does not apply to me; 5 = applies to me). We’ve mentioned before that we’d love to see a Likert-based NPI. Here it is.
Study 2: This study used peer ratings. 152 participants invited a close friend (mostly of the same sex) to help in the study. The friends (the inviters) provided ratings for mate appeal, friend appeal, physical attractiveness, and social boldness. The participants (the invitees) took the NPI, validated German version, to assess their individual levels of sub-clinical narcissism, as well as surveys measuring self-esteem, mate appeal, and social boldness.
*Note: The NPI used in this study is the traditional 40-item dichotomous-response (0=agree; 1=disagree). They also used the Emmons Four Factor Model.
Study 3: Social science experiments are mostly done in labs where it’s easy to control conditions. But labs don’t always provide realistic simulations of the interactions and behaviors the researchers are interested in observing. The authors of this study tried to solve that problem by paying 61 men 35 euros each to approach 25 women on the street and ask for their contact information. The men were scored for sub-clinical narcissism using the Dirty Dozen Test, and were also scored for self-esteem. Each man’s number of successfully obtained contacts (phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook friend requests, etc.) counted as his level of mate appeal.
*Note: The Dirty Dozen Test used 12 of the most highly correlating items from the NPI, PCL-R, and MACH-IV to assess a persons sub-clinical levels of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, respectively.
In Study 1, higher narcissism predicted higher mate appeal, while lower narcissism predicted lower mate appeal.
Study 2 provided a wealth of information:
Narcissism positively correlated with mate appeal, physical attractiveness, and social boldness.
Under controlled conditions, self-esteem would not affect narcissists’ mate appeal.
Each of the seven Emmons factors except Exploitativeness/Entitlement (E/E) positively correlated with mate appeal.
Physical attractiveness and social boldness mediated the link between narcissism and mate appeal. This means that narcissism is not inherently attractive; it correlates with with these two traits, which are inherently attractive.
Study 3 showed that narcissism did not predict which type of woman a man would approach; all the men in the study approached more or less the same type. It also mirrored the findings of Studies 1 and 2, but under real-life conditions.
In Context
The study contributes considerably to our work on the potential attractiveness of narcissism. Here’s what it teaches us:
In Four Factors of Narcissism, we pointed out Emmons’ claimed that E/E is highly associated with neuroticism and is therefore the least attractive factor in his factor model. The results of the Back zero-acquaintance study supported this claim. But this study claims that the E/E factor doesn’t correlate with attractiveness at all, neither positively or negatively. Who’s right?
This study gives us more evidence that narcissists are popular in zero-acquaintance situations. We’ve examined one study so far that supports this idea; however, it did not narrow down the cause. This one tells us that a specific social strategy (boldness) and physical attractiveness are the causes.
This study’s results suggest that narcissists do not lower their standards when choosing which women to target. This directly contradicts another study we examined, but the effect was observed under more natural conditions, making this new study’s claims that much stronger. Furthermore, the men in this study weren’t incentivized to approach women indiscriminately; they were paid and sent out. More contacts did not increase their individual payouts at the end of the study. Their approaches were dictated purely by personal preference.
In a controlled setting, self-esteem would not affect sex appeal. This is a huge and controversial claim. Conventional wisdom says that confidence is the “magic bullet” in dating. But this study’s data analyses suggest that it’s irrelevant. Only social boldness and physical attractiveness mediate narcissists’ mate appeal. This claim also directly contradicts the idea that physically-determined behavioral confirmation controls attractiveness.
We’ve taken a huge step forward toward determining what makes the Dark Triad personalities attractive. This study is fantastic; it controls for physical attractiveness and for self-esteem. It uses natural, real-life settings to support its claims. It uses the NPI to screen participants for high- and low-level sub-clinical narcissism. And above all, it avoids self-report data. The second study is, of course, flawed by the personal closeness of the subjects and the students, but the authors admit it, and the third study addresses it. The only other obvious oversight is the lack of attention paid to behavioral strategies. If the researchers had re-run the third study using scripted or pre-planned interactions, we would then be able to see which specific narcissistic behaviors – if any – increase attractiveness.
We’re confident that boldness is an effective mating strategy for men. Is it the most efficient method? Probably not. How bold is too bold? We don’t know. To answer these questions, we need to test behavioral strategies in greater depth and detail.
Sources
Dufner, M., Rauthmann, J. F., Czarna, A. Z., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2013). Are narcissists sexy? zeroing in on the effect of narcissism on short-term mate appeal. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, doi: 10.1177/0146167213483580
For a summary of our Dark Triad posts, visit our Dark Triad Summary page.
